In/Visibility: Discussing Book Challenges and Bans in U.S. Public Schools by: Natalie Perez
An Introduction
For my data physicalization artifact, I visually depicted data pertaining to book challenges and bans, particularly those occurring within public schools located within the U.S.
As per the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials were noted in 2021; more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals occurred as a result. These 729 challenges demonstrate the highest number of attempted book bans since the ALA began collecting this data in 1990. Between January 1st and August 31st, 2022, the ALA recorded 681 attempts to ban or restrict library materials, and 1,651 unique titles were targeted as a result. The number of attempts to ban library materials in 2022 is set to exceed the record number of attempts that occurred in 2021.
This issue is one libraries must respond to, considering that book challenges and bans are only multiplying every year. These challenges and bans primarily silence voices from diverse communities, such as BIPOC, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those of several life experiences, and within a public school setting, this silence can have various consequences regarding youths' understanding of the world.
Youths deserve to have literature with characters who look and/or live the way they do, and youths deserve to have literature with characters who do not look and/or live they way they do; in the case of the former, they are provided with representation, and in the case of the latter, they are provided with a way of building empathy towards those who differ from them.
Due to my interest in advocating for youths, my artifact discusses the consequences of book challenges and bans, while also providing visibility to those who are particularly targeted by said challenges and bans.
My Ideation
Initially, I planned to utilize paper arts and LED lights to create a pop-up book with two pairs of pages; the first pair of pages would highlight the invisibility, i.e., silencing, that occurs as a result of book challenges and bans, while the second pair of pages would highlight visibility, i.e., empowerment, by directly highlighting the voices continually silenced by these challenges and bans.
I included two datasets from PEN America within this data physicalization artifact to discuss invisibility and visibility, both of which I will discuss in further detail soon.
Before proceeding, I do want to mention that, due to complications that occurred when I attempted building the front cover, back cover, and spine of my pop-up book, I instead decided to create two separate books - two volumes of a series - to discuss invisibility and visibility, respectively. All of my previously mentioned ideas reminded the same. Therefore, the only significant change from my initial idea was dedicating one book to each pair of pages instead of building one book to hold both pairs of pages.
Banned Books, Vol. 1
My first book, focusing on invisibility, i.e., silencing, focuses on the following dataset, from PEN America:
"From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles. The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether."
I wanted to visually depict the overwhelming growth of book challenges and bans, while also demonstrating how many of these books, proportionally, are unique titles; with these depictions, I hoped to demonstrate how many creative voices are affected by these challenges and bans.
Therefore, to represent the 2,532 instances of book bans, I included 21 quotes from the 10 most banned titles of the 2021-2022 school year. In total, these quotes consisted of 998 words. Then, to demonstrate how many of these bans consisted of unique titles, I kept 648 of the 998 words visible (65% of the words), which is equivalent to the proportion of 1,648 unique titles out of 2,532 total instances of book bans.
All 21 quotes are written on different pop-up flaps of paper, and I choose this pop-up book format to highlight invisibility; not every quote is visible at the same time, i.e., voices are silenced by these challenges and bans at different intervals. Furthermore, I specifically choose to keep certain words of the quotes visible, including personal pronouns, emotions, and words relating to different identities, to create blackout poetry of my own design.
My poetry demonstrates that, while these stories exist, challenges and bans fracture them, making it impossible to glean the full context of the quotes and their respective books. (I still want to provide visibility to these authors and credit them for the words I used to create this poetry though, so all 21 quotes are included at the end of this page.)
To further highlight invisibility, I included 10 LED lights on a framework I glued to the back of the framework of my pop-up flaps. Of these 10 LED lights, 5 of them are not operated by copper tape and batteries; their inability to operate highlights the complete silencing of certain voices. The remaining 5 LED lights are operational, highlighting the voices that are still advocating for these books, and the visibility that still remains; however, the batteries of these LED lights will eventually die out, demonstrating the growing prevalence of book challenges and bans this year.
After gluing these frameworks together, and building a binding to mimic the structure of a book, this part of the project was complete.
Banned Books, Vol. 2
My second book, focusing on visibility, i.e., empowerment, focuses on the following dataset, from PEN America:
"Among the 1,648 unique [challenged and/or banned] titles in the Index, 674 titles (41 percent) explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+ (this includes a specific subset of titles for transgender characters or stories—145 titles, or 9 percent); 659 titles (40 percent) contain protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color; 338 titles (21 percent) directly address issues of race and racism; 357 titles (22 percent) contain sexual content of varying kinds, including novels with some level of description of sexual experiences of teenagers, stories about teen pregnancy, sexual assault and abortion as well as informational books about puberty, sex, or relationships; 161 titles (10 percent) have themes related to rights and activism; 141 titles (9 percent) are either biography, autobiography, or memoir; and 64 titles (4 percent) include characters and stories that reflect religious minorities, such as Jewish, Muslim and other faith traditions."
I wanted to visually highlight the specific subject matters being attacked through these book challenges and bans, while also providing said subject matters with visibility during this part of the project, too. In doing so, I wanted a visual comparison of which subject matters are most prominent amongst the book challenges and bans and which subject matters are less prominent.
As a disclaimer, there is overlap present amongst these characteristics per challenged and/or banned book, but I did not account for said overlap since that kind of data was not available. Therefore, I added up the previous numbers of titles (674 + 659 + 338 + 357 + 161 + 141 + 64 = 2,394) and then proportionally provided space to each subject matter. For example, 28% of the pages' space (674 / 2,394 = 0.28) is dedicated to LGBTQ+ themes and characters.
Despite demonstrating the presence of these topics, proportionally, amongst challenged and banned books, I wanted this book to have dual meaning; by acknowledging these topics, I also wanted to provide visibility.
None of the 7 topics are written on pop-up flaps of paper. I chose not to include a pop-up book format to highlight visibility; every topic is visible at the same time.
To further highlight visibility, I built an aluminum foil structure on a framework I glued to the back of the framework of my paper squares/rectangles. I choose to use aluminum foil, contrasting from the LED lights, because it is continually reflective; light will always shine off of the foil, and it provides empowerment to the voices and issues acknowledged here.
After gluing these frameworks together, and building a binding to mimic the structure of a book, this part of the project was complete.
A Conclusion
Book bans and challenges are only growing in number every year, and as advocates for youths, and society in general, librarians must continue advocating for the inclusion of these titles within their library spaces.
Furthermore, community members of schools, such as students, parents, teachers, etc., must also advocate for these diverse titles, to ensure that youths have access to a range of stories and experiences within their literature.
Ultimately, it will be a community effort to advocate for youths and defend these authors' freedom to express themselves, and judging from the growing numbers of challenges and bans, it will be on ongoing battle for future to come.
Quotes from Challenged and/or Banned Books
“Many of us connect with each other through trauma and pain: broken people finding other broken people in the hopes of fixing one another.” ― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.” ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
“The clearest metaphor I had for my own gender identity in college was the image of a scale. A huge weight had been placed on one side, without my permission. I was constantly trying to weigh down the other side. But the end goal wasn't masculinity - the goal was balance.” ― Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer
“And most of us feel powerless. Motivated but powerless. Entertained but powerless. Informed but powerless. Fleetingly content, most of the time broke, sometimes hopeful, but ultimately powerless. And angry. Don't forget angry.” ― Jonathan Evison, Lawn Boy
“Have you ever had so much to say that your mouth closed up tight struggling to harness the nuclear force coalescing within your words? Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside you that you didn’t dare let them escape in case they blew you wide open? Have you ever been so angry that you couldn’t look in the mirror for fear of finding the face of evil glaring back at you?” ― Ellen Hopkins, Crank
"His hands opened her thighs, and then he was touching her with his mouth, kissing warmth, wetness. She might have been ashamed, but she wasn't. She was alive, tremblingly alive." ― Ashley Hope Pérez, Out of Darkness
“Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
“This book probably makes it seem like I hate myself and everything I do. But that's not totally true. I mostly just hate every person I've ever been. I'm actually fine with myself right now.” ― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
“That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?” ― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
“They had been happy, for a time, before the rules found them. Before the terrible price was exacted for their transgressions. For the crossing of lines. For friendship, for love.” ― Ashley Hope Pérez, Out of Darkness
“And furthermore, it's my opinion that those who claim their accomplishments all to themselves, those who are the heroes of their own stories, are liars.” ― Jonathan Evison, Lawn Boy
“Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles.” ― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
“I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.” ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
“Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.” ― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue
“If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad. Arnold, get mad.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
“Funny thing, your brain, / how it always functions on one / level or another. How, even stuck in / some sort of subconscious limbo, it works / your lungs, your muscle twitches, your heart, / in fact, in symphony with your heart, allowing it / to feel love. Pain. Jealousy. Guilt. I wonder if it’s the / same for people, lost in comas. Is there really such a thing” ― Ellen Hopkins, Crank
“When people ask me how I got into activism, I often say, 'The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.' If I wasn’t gonna fight for me, who else was?” ― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue
“Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.” ― Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer
“Daddy once told me there's a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn't stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there's nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.” ― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
“There was just something about her dying that I had understood but not really understood, if you know what I mean. I mean, you can know someone is dying on an intellectual level, but emotionally it hasn't really hit you, and then when it does, that's when you feel like shit.” ― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
“They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds - cooled - and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming whatever was in its path.” ― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Bibliography
“Censorship by the Numbers.” Banned & Challenged Books, American Library Association, https://oif.ala.org/oif/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CensorshipbytheNumbers2020.pdf.
“Frequently Challenged Books with Diverse Content.” Banned & Challenged Books, American Library Association, 20 Apr. 2020, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/diverse.
Friedman, Jonathan, and Nadine Farid Johnson. “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools.” PEN America, PEN America, 19 Sept. 2022, https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/.
“Kids' Right to Read: Action Kit for Students and Parents.” National Coalition Against Censorship, National Coalition Against Censorship, https://ncac.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/KRRP-Action-Kit-2022.pdf.
“Large Majorities of Voters Oppose Book Bans and Have Confidence in Libraries.” American Library Association, American Library Association, 29 Apr. 2022, https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2022/03/large-majorities-voters-oppose-book-bans-and-have-confidence-libraries.
“State of America's Libraries Report 2022.” Edited by Stephanie Hlywak, American Library Association, American Library Association, https://www.ala.org/news/sites/ala.org.news/files/content/state-of-americas-libraries-special-report-pandemic-year-two.pdf.
“Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists.” Banned & Challenged Books, American Library Association, 20 Sept. 2022, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10.
“Unite Against Book Bans: Action Toolkit.” Unite Against Book Bans, American Library Association, 30 Aug. 2022, https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/toolkit#talking-points.
Credits:
Created with an image by LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS - "schoolgirls looking for books in library"