Newswire
Posted on November 17, 2022 at 11:23 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
PEN America reports that almost three hundred books have been banned in Missouri school districts since August.
The freedom-of-expression organization timed the study to see the effects of a state law, passed in August, that makes distributing “explicit sexual material” to students a crime punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine.
The Hill notes that while the law contains exceptions for books used in sex ed or that have "anthropological or artistic significance," that hasn't saved works on art history or the Holocaust.
The Wentzville School District alone saw about 220 books removed.
Authors including Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Lois Lowry released an open letter on Wednesday night urging Missouri's school boards to reverse these “overzealous” book bans.
(A graphic-novel adaptation of Lowry's novel The Giver appears to have been banned in Wentzville schools, by the way, because a character helps a senior citizen bathe.)
Also from PEN America: a list of the fifty most frequently banned books in the United States during the 2021-2022 school year.
Categories: Today in Books