Brooklyn Public Library president says now is “a time to act” in fight against book bans

Adults who are upset by rising book bans should get involved in their local PTA.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Nov. 08, 2022

FILE – Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021. The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify, the American Library Association reported Friday. Numbers for 2022 already approach last year’s totals, which were the highest in decades. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Story at a glance

President and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library Linda Johnson is encouraging parents upset over recent books bans to get more involved in schools.

Book bans in school districts have been on the rise for the last two years.

Last year alone the ALA found that 1,597 individual books were challenged.

President and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library Linda Johnson is encouraging parents concerned over the growing legislation banning books to become more civically engaged.

There have been 2,532 instances of individual book bans across the United States impacting 1,648 individual titles between July 2021 and June of this year, according to PEN America, an organization that advocates for free speech.

Most of those titles are books that either have an LGBTQ protagonist, touch on themes of gender identity or have a main character that is a person of color, the organization found.

Likewise, the American Library Association (ALA) reported in September that it recorded 1,597 individual book challenges in 2021, the most attempts to ban books since the organization began tracking book bans 20 years ago.

And while book bans are not unheard of in the United States, the most recent wave of censorship in reading material feels different to many authors and appears to be much more organized.

In an interview with Changing America, Johnson said parents who are outraged over the spike in legislation targeting titles should be “active in their PTAs” and that elected officials should work to shine a light on the most recent wave of censorship hitting schools.

“I think it’s got to be a collective effort,” Johnson said. “The answer is getting involved and it’s really a time to act.”

To combat rising attacks on books, the Brooklyn Public Library launched a program in April called Books Unbanned which allows teens and young adults as old as 21 across the U.S. access the library’s online collection for free.

“We feel like you’re only 13 to 21 once, you know, and if you’re deprived of this material, it’s really detrimental and isolating a lot of cases,” Johnson said.