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The American Library Association has spent this week promoting Banned Books Week, its annual campaign to raise awareness about the fight against book censorship. But it's a fight that, by their own metric, the ALA has been losing the past four years. NPR's Andrew Limbong spoke with the group's president about why.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: The latest data on book censorship is a mixed bag according to the ALA. On one hand, the raw number of books being challenged in libraries has dropped a bit compared to last year. On the other hand, there's a growing trend of soft censorship, certain books being hidden or not being put on display. Here's Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association.
CINDY HOHL: It has remained at a boiling point.
LIMBONG: The push to remove books, particularly books dealing with LGBTQ issues or race in America, has intensified over the past four years. The ALA's own data has shown that as well as other First Amendment groups such as PEN America. I asked Hohl why this tide has been so hard to stop.
HOHL: Well, when you look at the size of the community, it's often a point of contention between the residents and library users. They're not always one and the same.
LIMBONG: In other words, from Hohl's purview, the people complaining about libraries aren't necessarily the people using the libraries.
HOHL: And so when we look at well-meaning patrons, constituents, residents and they are making decisions based on misinformation, it is the role of the library and the librarian to help set the record straight.
LIMBONG: The ALA has tried to do this by providing what they call book resumes. They're quick reviews of books that give context about an author in the storyline. You can find book resumes for anything from Toni Morrison's "Beloved" to "And Tango Maks Three," the picture book about the gay penguin couple.
If someone is mad about a book about gay penguins, does knowing the publisher or knowing anything, you know, about the authors really going to impact how they feel about the book?
HOHL: You know, it depends on the person. If someone is fearful of a storyline to the point where they feel it's problematic for society as a whole and they want to challenge that content, they're going to do so. And everyone has a right to do that. What we don't have rights to do is to tell fellow Americans what they can and cannot read.
LIMBONG: But complaints about books are only partly about the actual books, says Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University.
JOSH COWEN: We're in this, like, resurgent moment for Christian nationalism in this country, again, across the variety of social spectrums. But public schools and public libraries are a major battleground in that space. And that's something the American right has long targeted.
LIMBONG: Cowen is the author of the book "The Privateers," about wealthy conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation working to dismantle public education. And book bans are a part of that strategy, he says.
COWEN: The goal isn't really to stop at removing four books from a library. It is to be able to make a big, sweeping statement about the kind of values that they believe public schools are using to, quote, "indoctrinate your children."
LIMBONG: As ALA president, Cindy Hohl has spoken to a number of librarians who have had to bear the brunt of these attacks.
HOHL: We are seeing professionals decide to leave the field because it's too much. No one wants to be accused of doing harm ever.
LIMBONG: She wishes they'd stay, but she understands why they don't. Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
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