On Viewing the Documentary, The Librarians (2025, Directed by Kim Snyder)
As school and public libraries continue to be targeted with challenges to their collections, I really enjoyed watching this documentary about the librarians around the country who are striving to protect the rights of readers. The Librarians has been screened at more than 50 domestic and international film festivals since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, and has earned 22 awards as of this writing. It is being broadcast until May 9 by PBS Independent Lens.
I had the pleasure of meeting one of the librarians who is featured in the film. Martha Hickson, now retired, was an award-winning school librarian at North Hunterdon (NJ) High School when a parent began organizing to try to remove books such as Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison from shelves--without following collection development procedures. Hickson’s resistance to removing these titles led to her receiving online threats and in-person harassment. Other librarians in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana endured the same. While depicting the conflicts, the documentary also shows people in addition to librarians—the clergy, students, and parents—who also stood up to advocate for the freedom to read in their communities.
In New Jersey, we are fortunate to have a law, the Freedom to Read Act, which was enacted as a direct result of Hickson’s work with Sen. Andrew Zwicker. (https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/ftra.shtml)
To read more about censorship, books bans, and challenges to reading freely, check out these Mercer County Library System titles:
Jones is featured in the documentary. This book describes how her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book-banning campaigns funded by dark money organizations. But Jones wouldn't give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.
Wake Now in the Fire: A Graphic Novel, by Jarrett Dapier
It starts when copies of Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, are
no longer allowed in the classrooms or library of any Chicago public
high school. Not even the principals know why this is happening; they
just know they must comply with the order. One thing is clear: The book,
which tells a story of oppression, survival, and resistance against
authoritarian power, is seen as a threat, dangerous enough to ban. One
other thing is clear: Some of the students aren't going to let this go
without resistance of their own.
Written by the librarian who exposed key information about the Chicago
Public Schools censorship decision, Wake Now in the Fire is a
fictionalized account of a true event that galvanized a community. With
illustrations by Alex Award-winner AJ Dungo that perfectly capture the
everyday joys, heartbreak, and stresses of high school, this graphic
novel is an inspiring portrayal of student activism taking on one of the
most urgent issues of our time, and a passionate reminder of why
protecting the books we love matters.
From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today's state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today's conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children's relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.
LaRue, who served as director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, highlights the dangers of book banning and censorship in our public and educational spaces. Synthesizing his more than twenty-five years of experience on the front lines of these issues, he takes the reader through attempts he encountered to remove or restrict access to ideas, while placing the debate in the greater context about the role of libraries and free expression in a democratic society. By examining past efforts at censorship and their dangerous impacts, LaRue asks the reader to reflect on how those times are not so different from today.
Book Bans in Fiction:
Librarian Darcy and her wife are happily living with their two cats in a house by the lake, when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend has passed away. She spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch's upcoming DEI programs. Through the support of her community, colleagues, and the personal growth that results from examining her previous relationships, Darcy comes into her own agency and the truest version of herself.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime--the WWII organization that used books as "weapons in the war of ideas"--The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable work of historical fiction.
From 1933 Berlin, where American writer Althea James has received an invitation from Joseph Goebbels himself, to Paris, where Hannah Brecht discovers the City of Light is no refuge from anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathizers, to New York of 1944, where war widow Vivian Childs meets the mysterious woman tending the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books in Brooklyn, three stories converge to crash into the secrets of the recent past. A haunting love story and a testament to the beauty and power of the written word.
Kathleen @ Hopewell
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