Banned Books: SHOCKING. Teacher Reacts | Young Adult Novels Banned Book Week 2024 | Moms for Liberty
Natalie plays a game to find out why 5 popular YA novels were banned in United States schools during the 2023-24 school year.
Natalie plays a game to find out why 5 popular YA novels were banned in United States schools during the 2023-24 school year. So many children's books were banned, challenged, and censored this year, Natalie needed a video just for that! This video is Pt 2 which explores novels (both young adult and adult titles).
*Banned Books Featured:
📚 Tricks by Ellen Hopkins: https://urlgeni.us/amzn/tricks
📚 Fun Home A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel: https://urlgeni.us/amzn/funhome
📚 Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov: https://amzn.to/3A1OXBe
📚 A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Moss: https://urlgeni.us/amzn/frostandstarl...
📚 Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by L.C. Rosen: https://urlgeni.us/amzn/JackofHearts
*thank you for shopping with my affiliate links
Though it’s less emphasized in this video, just like part 1 Moms for Liberty was the voice behind the vast majority of books banned, particularly in Florida schools.
References for this video:
Side Quest: What is The Bechdel Test? https://bechdeltest.com/
Tricks, A Court of Frost and Starlight, Jack of Hearts (and other parts): https://www.wfae.org/education/2023-10-31/cms-panel-removes-one-challenged-book-despite-popularity-keeps-two-despite-sexual-content
Jack of Hearts (and other parts)
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/fun-home-a-family-tragicomic/
Transcript:
it's not what you're being exposed to in the books. It's What the community around you does with that information.
hey, it's Natalie and welcome back to Primary Focus. I'm back with another banned book series. We're going to play a little game to look at some books that have been banned in the United States this year and find out exactly what is going on in these other countries. Awful, terrible novels. typically I do children's books when I do these, but there were so many young adult novels that are popular with teens that were banned.
This year. I said, I need to dive in and have some deeper conversations about these
so I'm curious as we go through these together, what you think about banning some of these young adult novels.
So to make this a little bit more fun I enlisted the help of my husband Mike to help narrow down some of these titles and find out why they were banned for me.
Hello, Mike. Hello. Okay. So Mike has brought me some big kid books. Oh, those are very big. You've brought me. A lot here. Do I have to read these? You've got your homework cut out for you.
Oh boy. Okay. We've got envelopes peeking out at the top here. Are these the answers? We'll take a guess together, you and me, about why these were banned. I'll let you know a little bit about what they're about.
Mike did the research and found out where they are getting banned in public schools and why they're getting banned. Thanks, babe. Toodles. Okay, let's dive into some of the nastiest, most awful books on the market for kids today.
All right, this is part two, going through the books. All right. Uh, I guess I've got my work cut out for me. I am familiar with some of these titles. I have not read through all of these, but I will do a good skim probably off camera a little bit, just so that you don't have to watch me skim take my word for it, that I have really pawed through these books.
I'm going for the bottom one. This book is huge. Trix.
by Ellen Hopkins.
So one thing that's interesting about this book, it is written in like a poetry or verse form. this would be a very interesting book to get through. Reading the jacket cover here. Five teenagers from five parts of the country, three girls, two guys, four straight, one gay, some rich, some poor, some from great families, some with no one at all, all living their lives as best they can, but searching for freedom, safety, community, family, and love.
What they don't expect though is all that can happen when those powerful little words, I love you are said for the wrong reason. A story about figuring out what sex and love are all about at all costs while asking themselves, can I ever feel okay about myself?
It does say on the side here from my library, this is a young adult book, so it's written with teenagers in mind, my guess would be, I mean, it says in the front here a lot of sexual content, so let's go ahead and look in the envelope. That's my checkout slip.
Let's go ahead and look in the envelope to find out what's going on.
Tricks. Oh, from my school district. Debated in Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. That's where I used to teach. Banned in schools across South Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Arkansas, and Wyoming. Okay, so this book comes with a reputation. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins came out in 2009 and is written in free verse.
this is a quote from CMS and actually something I really like about the school district That I taught in is they have a very open process to banning books and since they have started doing these committees, they Are very open with the press.
A lot of places around the country have started making committees that decide. I've actually heard from a teacher that wrote into me, the funny things about these committees is everyone on the committee has to read the book, and then if they don't decide to ban the book, take every copy and then
just distribute it to local libraries. You might end up doubling down and giving more copies out to the libraries. Okay. So what they said is the book is in free verse, which could be off putting to readers and took a while to get used to it. Only seven. High schools in, the district have a copy, and I think there's like over 20 high schools.
this is not a high circulation book, and I'll be honest, I had to stop and tell myself you're going to get used to reading this soon. But I was frustrated reading it, and I know teenagers will not likely want to push through reading this. Okay, so that's interesting, this is hard to read. panelists said it was difficult to read about child prostitution spoilers, and abuse.
but they said it would be important for teens to read and find out about people from all walks of life getting pulled into prostitution and trafficking. And they ultimately decided to keep it in the libraries, but it seems like it's been banned in a lot of other places, so that's interesting. My school district decided to keep this.
Mike, thank you for finding that article. That's really cool.
Number two here, fun home, a family tragic comic. This book is a graphic novel where there's a young woman starting to realize that she is gay her father commits suicide and while going through his things and going through the grief of this, she finds out that her father, though was married to her mother her whole life, was actually gay and closeted and was having affairs with men throughout his life it's sort of a coming of age story where she's coming into her own realization that she is gay, through her college years while also coping with the grief of his death.
So just going off of that, I'm imagining this is like one of those really awful books that is glamorizing the gay lifestyle. but let's see what he said here.
Banned in Florida, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Beaufort, South Carolina schools, some Idaho schools, and some Missouri schools. Fun fact. Ooh, love a fun fact. This is the author that invented the Bechdel test. Allison Bechdel. Which measures how women are represented in movies and other media.
Oh, I love the Bechdel test, that is a great, side quest, if you don't know what that is. the book is banned, considered pornographic and promoting the gay lifestyle and drug use. Mean it is a graphic novel. I mean they're going through relationships and things like that, but I wouldn't call this like a nudie, pornographic book.
it does seem to cover some heavy topics. I mean, a coming of age story is really important, and it sounds like this is another case of representation.
We want people to see themselves, not just, in the gay community, but like, grief, I think is really important. children can get really lost if they experience death of a loved one. As I flipped through this it's talking a lot about grief and coming of age And who are we to take that from kids?
I feel like there must be some really good learning opportunities in here and some really great opportunities to see yourself,
next one. Lolita. Oh, wow. This book, It is so heavy. lolita. Lolita's from like the 19 50s. This is not a young adult novel for the record lolita is a tragedy and lolita has been up for censorship for a long time.
It's always been a controversial book I actually tried to read lolita when I was in high school And I couldn't get through it It is dense novel because It is from the 50s.
It's also written in very different language I did not find this accessible when I was in high school I was interested in it because i'd heard about lolita fashion heard that it was named after a book not having any idea about what it's about. Long story short, it is about this man. He is a professor he's a pedophile. marries this woman because she has a really cute, I think she's like 12 or something girl. it is a tragedy.
All the characters wind up dead at the end. There is a little bit of violence that goes on in this book I think most people know this is a tragedy going into it the same way that you go into romeo and juliet knowing that it's going to be like a hard read I also don't think a teenager's gonna read this. let's see what it says.
Canby School District in Oregon and Catawba County Schools. Catawba County is in North Carolina. a controversial book. noted there are no, sex scenes in it. Mike said here he's interested that people are upset with it more for The topics, but not about the violence in it, Which I think is an interesting point, actually as I go through these, None of these books seem to be getting pulled out for violence, I personally, Really dislike reading and watching things with violent content in them.
I find it quite disturbing, how many movies and books we have out now that are just surrounded by violence murder and war
I find it interesting that none of these books are being banned for being violent. They're being banned for self expression and love and lifestyle. Okay. Lolita. I mean, listen, I'm not here for banning books, but like, if we got to pick one that has to go, I think we'll be all fine without Lolita. And I do apologize to the author. Maybe that's rude, but again, I think we'll be fine.
Alright, I've got two more here. this next one, I actually could not get a copy of it because it is so popular. there were dozens of people ahead of me on the wait list at the library. you probably heard of this book. It is A Court of Frost and Starlight.
The author is Sarah Moss, it's a really popular fantasy series that has quite a bit of smut in it. these books are super popular and they're blowing up on TikTok because they're not even that new.
The series has been out for a while, but social media has really brought these books back. this is the fifth in the series I'm guessing it's the sexual content in the book, Okay, CMS, this is district that I used to teach for, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
Noted, specifically this is not a young adult novel, and I do think that is an important thing to consider. I don't think that should be the rule when stocking a library, but if you're on the fence about something, I do think books that are written specifically for young adults have a different approach to how they are writing and how the characters act and the topics covered, compared to things that are just like,
they said 22 schools in Charlotte Mecklenburg schools have the Frost and Starlight book, and it's been checked out a total of 62 times, so that is popular. In comparison, there are a lot of books that won't get checked out a single time over the course of a year. In fact, that was one of the reasons why they were okay keeping tricks, because you kind of would have to really be seeking it out to check it out.
It wasn't popular. The panel voted 4 3 to remove it from all Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. Quote, this one definitely has some explicit sexual content and the team wasn't convinced that it was related to moving the story along.
If you are reading this series right now, I have not started it. I didn't feel like it would make sense for me to buy, book number five in a series if I haven't read the first books. Let me know, is this book particularly spicy compared to the others? let's take a look jack of hearts and other parts by lc rosen Looking at the back here
Oh, okay Jack has a lot of sex, and he's not ashamed of it. While he's sometimes ostracized and gossip constantly rages about his sex life, Jack always believes that it could be worse. But then, the worst unexpectedly strikes. When Jack starts writing teen sex advice column for his friend's blog, he begins to receive creepy and threatening love letters.
That attempt to force Jack to curb his sexuality and personality. Now it's up to Jack and his best friends to uncover the stalker. Ooh, this sounds good. Groundbreaking and page turning. Jack of hearts and other parts celebrates the freedom to be oneself, especially in the face of adversity.
Okay, well, I think maybe we can all take a guess here. These are not as cryptic, I find, as the children's books. . Jack of hearts, oh dear, and other parts. Banned in CM Ooh, my school district banned this. also banned in some districts in Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Panelists. at CMS, where I taught, said the book made them uncomfortable, but it could be valuable to students who have questions, and especially to LGBTQ students who don't see themselves reflected in other books. Oh, see? They also voiced concerns that it glorifies casual sex while drinking alcohol and smoking weed, which they said isn't safe.
Ultimately, they decided not to remove the book, though., oh, wait. But about a month after the decision was made, the superintendent came back and removed it.
Superintendent Crystal Hill chose to remove the book because of, quote, the explicit graphic sexual of the novel.
Interesting. And so this, now that I've seen a court of Frost and Starlight, and this, it, maybe it is just the level of how explicit things are, These books really got me thinking about like, how much is too much? and what do we want to expose kids to? and these challenged me much differently than some of the books that I've done that are more picture books for children.
I find usually you're not dealing with things that are illegal for children to be doing or really graphic or really risky behavior. And we are seeing books that are focusing in the whole plot is revolving around risky behavior. this is really challenging my thinking.
Hey, so, uh, I was just thinking about this video. I filmed that earlier today and now I'm ready to go out with a couple of friends on a Saturday night. And as I was getting ready, I was thinking through all those nights as a teenager and in college and things, when you're getting ready to go out to the dance and then to college parties and places where you are going to be exposed to those bad decisions.
where sometimes things surprise you I was thinking about the things that I watched when I was in high school and middle school. The books that I read that probably would be inappropriate and find their way onto banned book lists today some intentionally because I was curious some unintentionally because they were just sprung on me.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into. when I think about those books, and when I think about what I was exposed to, and as you learn more about the world around you when you are a teenager, it's not what you're being exposed to in the books. It's What the community around you does with that information.
It's the way that the community around you holds you and reacts to you knowing these things and teaches you what to do next now that you know this information. And so, for me, it's not so much banning and preventing them from learning about unsavory content. A lot of what we need to do is react properly.
The last thing that we want to do is make a child feel like they have to hide a book under their bed. Or make a child feel like they won't be accepted for agreeing with some of the things that they're exposed to. They need to know that they have a family and a larger community that's going to support them, walk with them, and help them continue to develop into the wonderful adult that we all hope that they'll be.
that's one thing that I feel like is missing a lot from book bans. I totally understand why parents would be concerned about children learning things too early or, making choices the same way that some of the characters in these books are making choices, we can have intentional talks with kids and keep the theme running about making smart choices and doing the right thing.
From a very, very young age, children can tell you the difference between right and wrong and making a good and bad choice for themselves. as they get older, I think we can trust them to continue to make these decisions, and when they do make decisions that maybe aren't the best things to do, know that they can come to the adults around them, and be loved, and be helped out of these situations into the next step of life.
Anyway, I've got to go out and meet some friends now, and maybe make some bad decisions myself. just remember, we're all people, and people are just people. They shouldn't make you nervous. Have a good night.
Anyway, I think I need a shower after reading all these nasty, terrible things that are ruining our society.
I've got another video out with books that were banned in the 2023 2024 school year, specifically children's books in the elementary school setting. I hope that you go and check those out along with my other banned book series. My name is Natalie. Thank you so much for watching Primary Focus and I'll see you next time!