Book banning movement threatens our communities

The current national fervor over books is tearing apart local communities and placing teachers, librarians and elected local officials at risk, all in the name of “saving” children.

The escalating tensions are ripping apart our own communities in Telford, Kutztown, Collegeville and Downingtown, dividing families and friends, and affecting local libraries, municipal groups and schools.

Case in point: the small town of Telford. A borough of less than 5,000 residents, Telford is historically conservative with a heritage tied to the Mennonites of the Indian Valley, sharing history and commerce with the neighboring town of Souderton. The two towns also share a library, the Indian Valley Public Library, which has recently become a flashpoint in the book-banning debates.

The furor began after the two boroughs voted against funding expansion for the library, stating that money in their budgets was needed for police and fire services. Library supporters objected to the cuts and challenged the motives behind them. The social media claims and counter claims started, and soon the debate became an ugly rant by some against libraries as places of corruption of children and by others seeing challenges as hate against the LGBTQ community.

Caught in the middle are those trying to offer everyone a place to learn and explore ideas.

At a recent Telford council meeting, a council member and a number of public commenters said the content of books to which they object is “evil,” and some suggested that books be burned and those supporting the library face the judgment of God.

Margie Stern, the Indian Valley Public Library director, became choked up as she discussed the backlash. As a librarian for 30 years, she said that she cares deeply about children and only strives to put books into their hands. She said she has had to call police because library staff were being harrassed.

“We as librarians, we’re being perceived as people who are grooming people, providing pornography to children. I can tell you that my staff does nothing but care about children. … this demonizing is very hurtful as a person.”

In school districts, groups such as Moms for Liberty have been focusing efforts on ridding libraries of books they find objectionable, mostly due to LGBTQ themes. The issue has surfaced in the Perkiomen Valley School District, where a policy proposal has been hotly debated before the school board’s policy committee.

School board President Jason Saylor has floated a proposal that mirrors a controversial policy adopted by the Central Bucks School District. It would make it easier for community members to challenge books they believe to be inappropriate and have them removed from library shelves.

Nationwide, the movement is gaining momentum. According to syndicated columnist Steven Roberts, PEN America has documented “2,532 instances of individual books being banned” during the school year that ended last June. More than 1,600 titles were censored, written by 1,261 authors.

Some reports place Pennsylvania third behind Texas and Florida for the number of school library book bans. Among the districts where policies that support removing books have been discussed are Kutztown, Downingtown and Pennridge.

The problem coming into these districts, Roberts writes, is that the “powerful minority of well-organized vigilantes are imposing their views on everyone else. They are depriving other families of precisely the rights they claim for themselves — deciding what their children read and learn.”

Libraries, both school and public, are places to explore new ideas, not forbid them; to open discussions, not close them, and to foster learning in young minds, not stymy growth. This climate of books hysteria threatens to hurt children, rather than protect them. The danger is not in books but in the absence of them, in losing access to the wealth of knowledge and joy that books provide. When books are banned, we are all at risk from the harm that ignorance brings.