This week is start of the Banned Book Month and banning books is not sitting well with the students.
They are our secret ace-in-the-hole, many of them will be turning 18 by the elections next fall. They have been on the front-lines of the cultural war.School culture wars push students to form banned book clubs, anti-censorship groups
2023 has seen a record number of book banning efforts so far.
ABC News
By Kiara Alfonseca
October 2, 2023Across the country, a generation of young readers is standing up against efforts to ban or restrict certain books in schools and libraries.
Student-led banned book clubs and anti-censorship groups have been popping up in states where a conservative-led movement to remove certain books or lessons has led to boisterous board meetings, protests, and more.
The students behind these groups say they have long been left out of the conversation, despite being the most impacted by such restrictions.
"I thought it would be perfect to do a banned book club -- one: as just a way to read beautiful literature that's important and should be read and then two: kind of as an act of resistance," said 16-year-old Iris Mogul who recently started a banned book club in Miami, Florida.
In Austin, Texas, high school senior Ella Scott began leading a banned book club as a freshman when she first learned about attempts to challenge and censor certain stories.But it is just not students who are standing up to the bigotry…
Since then, book ban attempts have risen in the state -- and so has participation in her club, which grew from three people in its initial meeting to 30 current participants.
A history teacher said…Book bans are growing across Florida. So, a church and bookstore teamed up in protest
Miami Herald
By Grethel Aguila
October 1, 2023Iris Mogul yearned for a space in South Florida where she could indulge in discussions about the written word with like-minded people. That’s when the 16-year-old came up with a bright idea: start a group that meets at once a month at Books & Books in Coral Gables. The books they dissect in the meetings, however, have been banned.
“It was kind of like a double whammy because it’s like an act of resistance... and it’s a way to start a book club and talk to people,” said Mogul, a student a dual enrollment program at Florida International University.
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Mogul was one of dozens of people who gathered to protest censorship at the bookstore Sunday afternoon. The crowd marched from the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, where Pastor Laurie Hafner’s message to her congregation weaved together faith and the impact of book bans across the country. Books bans, Hafner said, are a threat to society — and spirituality — because they limit people’s ability to learn about “the diverse nature of God through other human beings.”
“New learners are going to learn lies about our history, and I refuse to do that,” Ersoff said. “I refuse to push lies on my students. That’s not what I was hired for. That’s not what teaching and learning is about.”TeenVogue wrote,
The silence on a recent sunny Friday morning outside Walton High School was broken by a car horn. I stood there, holding a sign that said, “You Can’t Love Freedom and Ban Books,” and watched the culprit in a tan minivan peel out of the parking lot and into the road in front of us. “Ban the perverts!” the driver screamed out her window. She was dressed in workoutwear, ponytail pulled tight, and sunglasses concealing most of her face.We need all the allies that we can get, hopefully the 18 to 30 year olds will have our backs,
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The question of “freedom” arises when young people are subject to legislation determining what we can read, learn, and even do with our own bodies, as we’ve seen with the anti-trans Senate Bill 140, which prohibits access to gender-affirming care and is currently blocked by a Georgia judge. A few angry parents and the legislators who bend to their will are dictating what books all 100,000 of us Cobb County students have access to. Yet, conservatives like to insist on the vitality of “freedom” in all facets of life.
For those living in Book Banning States I recommend checking to see if the school libraries have Bibles on the shelves. There's reason to ban the book due to descriptions of violence. For one, a man is nailed to a wooden cross through his hands and feet. Yikes! Should kids be allowed to read those types of descriptions?
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