A new study looks at parents’ perceptions of public libraries and the current issues they face, including book bans and how people feel about children’s books that touch on sometimes sensitive topics: LGBTQ+ characters, race/racism, social justice, and sexual education.
LGBTQ+ kids, those with LGBTQ+ parents, and allies, in grades K through 5, are invited to a free, virtual program tomorrow to “meet new friends, discover LGBTQ+ books, enjoy activities and special guests, and discuss gender and identity issues in a safe space.” The monthly program, hosted by a library in Pennsylvania, is open to children anywhere!
A group of patrons has asked for LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books to be removed from the children’s section of a Louisiana public library and made available for checkout only by adults. The library board is set to discuss the matter this afternoon.
A group of pastors in Maine has failed in its efforts to remove books they feel “promote homosexuality” and are “risque and immodest” from a local library display set up for—wait for it—Banned Books Week, the annual event to draw attention to the harms of censorship and celebrate the freedom to read. And for some of the library’s staff and patrons, the issue was very personal.
A mixed bag of news this time, with a few big wins, one legislative loss, and two library battles, among other news.
A new study has illuminated some of the ways in which school librarians are helping LGBT youth: with books, safe spaces, and emotional support.
The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual list of the 10 most frequently challenged books—and once again, ones with LGBTQ content are on it.
Books matter. “Children feel unimportant and invisible when they do not see representations of their lives and families in books,” asserts librarian Jamie Campbell Naidoo. He knows this firsthand. Growing up in the Bible Belt in the early 1980s, he says, there were no books that “mirrored my life and the lives of other queer children.” If there had been, he says, he “I would not have felt so alienated and ashamed of being different.” His classmates, too, might have understood his queerness was not strange. Such books, however, were not to be found.
Fast forward to today and Dr. Naidoo, now an assistant professor of library and information studies at the University of Alabama, has written a book of his own to help guide librarians, parents, teachers, and others seeking LGBT-inclusive titles.
