School district bans 400 books in response to anti-LGBTQ state lawhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/school-district-bans-400-books-in-response-to-anti-lgbtq-state-law/ar-AA1uo3ln?ocid=windirect&cvid=51d0833a7b1d4e1cba9fbf2f4681d76e&ei=25Story by Greg Owen (19 Nov 2024)
After passage of an updated and draconian book ban by the Tennessee Legislature in July, a single school district in the state has removed over 400 books from school libraries deeming them as "appealing to the prurient interest."
The long list of books removed from libraries in Wilson County Schools is now being distributed to other school districts in the state as a "resource" for librarians and administrators to "strongly consider" ...
The books banned in Wilson County include popular novels like the Netflix-adapted One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Umbrella Academy comic book series by Gerard Way, Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss, and Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes, which is the most frequently banned book of the 2023-2024 school year, according to PEN America's latest report.
Efforts to ban books that have swept the country in recent years have largely targeted books by and about people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, with conservatives attempting to paint the titles as "pornographic." According to a recent report from the Tennessee Equality Project, seven out of nine of the most challenged books in the state have queer themes or were written by an LGBTQ+ author.
