Books Banned. Students Too Engrossed With Gateway-to-All-Human-Knowledge To Notice.
The Ministry of Truth stands behind outraged parents and educators in conservative-leaning states. To fortify young scholars from questionable literary content in school libraries, they’ve tripled the number of banned books in one short year! Dangerous authors such as Agatha Christie, James Joyce, and other thoughtcriminals will no longer be found on many school shelves. Also not found? Any kids in the library at all.
In these contentious times, it’s imperative we not dwell on trivial facts — like literacy rates plummeting post-pandemic, or that 54% of adults read below the sixth grade level. The priority remains rigorously combing through the classics to eradicate any perceived threats to our children's innocence.
Ignore that kids’ attention is utterly monopolized by their handheld telescreens which are portals to infinite wisdom! Rather, rest assured knowing no child will be prematurely exposed to adult content in the library books they show no interest in reading.
Cast literary freedom into the memory hole! Each banned book is a leap forward in our quest for ideological purity. So long as parents continue to use their children as pawns in the eternal and irreconcilable battle over political differences, Big Brother will look down upon us and smile.
SYNTAX ERROR
PRINTING JUST THE FACTS
- PEN America has found that there were 10K books banned across the US K-12 public school system during the 2023-24 school year, up from 3,362 the year prior. Most of the book bans occurred in Republican-led states, including 8K in Florida and Iowa.
- A significant portion of the book bans, which also occurred in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Utah, were of the romance, women’s sexual experiences, sexual abuse, and LGBTQ genres, as well as race-related novels and memoirs.
- Among the authors whose books were banned include Alex Haley, Julie Murphy, James Baldwin, W.E.B. Dubois, Amy Tan, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Ellen Hopkins.
- In Florida, if a book is reported as containing "sexual conduct," it must be removed during the review process; in Utah, a book will be banned statewide after three districts deem it “objectively sensitive material”; and in Iowa, all books that describe a “sex act” are banned.
- South Carolina banned all “sex-related" books, leading to the ban of "Native Son," "Ulysses," and "The Color Purple," among others. Tennessee banned books containing nudity, “excess violence,” or sex-related content, resulting in the ban of books including "The Hate U Give," "Perks of Being a Wallflower," and "Court of Thorns and Roses."
- This comes as an estimated 54% of American adults read below a 6th-grade level, with 21% not literate at all. Students' post-pandemic literacy has also declined significantly, with recovery slow and inequities worsening.
Sources: PEN America, Publishing Perspectives, The Guardian, National Literacy Institute, Vox, ACLU, and The Tennessean.
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