Beyond book bans: how book challenges are impacting librarians and libraries in Massachusetts

Book challenges are not new; but in the past few years, book challenges have been occurring in record numbers. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were 45 book challenges in Massachusetts in 2022 affecting 57 titles. That’s more than the past 9 years (2013-2021) combined which totaled 38 challenges. Nationwide, ALA reported 1,270 book challenges in 2022, up significantly from 350 in 2019.

To date, no books have been banned in Massachusetts, however the Joint Task Force for Intellectual Freedom, with members from the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA), Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), Massachusetts Library System (MLS), the Massachusetts School Library Association (MSLA) were interested in whether the challenges were having other impacts on library services.

In July 2023 the task force conducted an informal survey to better understand the impact book challenges are having on library services and staff. The survey was open to library directors at all types of libraries who were asked to report on activity from June 30, 2022 to July 1, 2023.


Respondents by library type:
Public:  199

School:   35

Academic: 2

Special: 1


Significant Findings:

11 public libraries with a total of 59 challenges (one library had 32) were not reported to ALA, MLA, or MSLA during June 30,2022 to July 1, 2023.

Nearly 25% of school and public librarian respondents combined reported being harassed on social media; 22% reported being harassed via email; 18% report being harassed in person related to book challenges or program challenges.

48.5% of school library respondents reported that they reconsidered displays and books or items featured due to negativity surrounding book challenges.

18% of public library respondents reported that they eased up on publicizing an event which may be considered controversial.

The Massachusetts Library Association, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the Massachusetts Library System, and the Massachusetts School Library Association recently released a statement in support of libraries and intellectual freedom. Individuals can show their support by signing on at tinyurl.com/supporting-libraries. These organizations also provide information and support to librarians and communities experiencing book and program challenges. Intellectual Freedom & Censorship: Impact in Massachusetts and Beyond and More Licensed School Library Teachers, Less Book Banning have more information. For full survey results please contact Celeste.Bruno@mass.gov or June.Thammasnong@mass.gov .

Massachusetts and the nation wrestle with book bans, challenges, and protests in libraries

According to the American Library Association (ALA) Library staff in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons. Recently, ALA submitted comments about the impact to the House Oversight Committee.
Massachusetts has also seen a dramatic surge in book challenges and disturbances. Combined formal and informal challenges, objections, disruptions have nearly quadrupled since 2021, going from combined total of 20 in 2021 to 78 in 2022.

Below are issue-related *articles. The most recent are listed first.

Massachusetts based news stories:

Groups urge schools to resist book bans
January 24, 2023
(The Salem News)  BOSTON — Civil liberties groups are urging state and local education officials to push back against “coordinated” efforts to ban books, warning that pulling any controversial titles from libraries could run afoul of anti-discrimination laws.
In a letter to the state’s public school districts, the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders cited a recent uptick in library book challenges from parents and conservative groups targeting titles related to LGBTQ issues, communities of color, and other marginalized groups.
Read Full Story

White supremacists protest Taunton drag queen story time, police say
January 16, 2023
(ABC, News6) Police said over two dozen members of NSC-131, a white nationalist group, gathered outside the library Saturday to protest the event.
The protesters dressed in black masks and khaki pants waved a painted banner that read, “Drag queens are pedophiles.”
This group is also believed to be responsible for the racist flyers that have been dispersed throughout Rhode Island in the recent months.
Full story

Chelmsford Public Library reinstates ‘pastor story hour’ after church claims rights were violated
January 12, 2023
(Boston Globe) The Chelmsford Public Library has reinstated a pastor’s story hour that was planned for Friday morning but abruptly canceled Thursday afternoon after library officials said the church that organized the event misrepresented its plans.
A lawyer for The Shepherd’s Church had claimed the library bowed to public pressure after it became known that the event was planned in response to drag queen story hours.
Read full story

Neo-Nazis disrupted a drag event in Fall River. Organizers said they won’t be discouraged.
December 15, 2022
(The Herald News) FALL RIVER — A group of organized neo-Nazis disrupted a children’s event featuring a drag artist in Fall River this past weekend, with organizers vowing to not be discouraged from putting on future events.
“It was the most unsettling thing I’ve seen with my own eyes in a really long time,” said Sean Connell, President of the Fall River Pride Committee. “I think it’s so imperative to stay out here in the face of hate like this.”
Read full story

Christmas tree dispute at library has pitted ‘neighbor against neighbor,’ Dedham officials say
December 9, 2022(Boston Globe) “Unfortunately, a recent social media post expressing disagreement with the decision to display a holiday tree at the library has quickly evolved into a polarized environment and has led to the harassment and bullying of town employees,” the town said in a statement Thursday. “We wholeheartedly condemn this behavior as it tears at the fabric of our community and cannot be tolerated.”
Read full story

Book challenges on rise in Mass. amid culture wars
November 27, 2022
(Eagle Tribune)Massachusetts librarians are fielding a dramatic uptick in the number of book “challenges” from parents and outside groups who are upset about what they view as inappropriate content on sexuality and racism for younger readers.
A recent survey conducted by the Massachusetts Library Association found that informal challenges, disruptions and objections “quadrupled” between 2021 and 2022.
More than 100 libraries that responded to the group’s annual survey reported at least 78 book challenges so far this year — up from only 20 last year.
Read full story

National news stories:

America’s culture warriors are going after librarians
December 21, 2022
(.coda) It’s a tale playing out in cities and states across the country, as a book-banning fever courses through the country’s body politic. Nationally, attempts to remove books from school and public libraries are shattering previous records. The effort is being driven by a loose collection of local and national conservative parents’ groups and politicians who have found a rewarding culture war battle in children’s books about gender, diversity and sexuality. The majority of these groups were created during the pandemic as part of a broader “parents’ rights” movement that formed in opposition to Covid-related masking and remote learning policies in schools and that has since widened its focus to include challenging library and classroom books about race and LGBTQ issues.
Read full article

Kirk Cameron declares a ‘win’ over two public libraries that denied him story hours but now have ‘caved’
December 19, 2022
In comments to Fox News Digital over the weekend, actor and writer Kirk Cameron declared that he has “won” against two public libraries in this country that previously denied him the space and opportunity to hold a children’s book story hour program in their facilities — and that now are offering to work with him on room bookings after he challenged their denials and threatened to “assert” his “rights in court.”
Read full story

Kirk Cameron is denied story-hour slot by public libraries for his new faith-based kids book
December 7, 2021
(Fox News) With a new children’s book out that celebrates family, faith and biblical wisdom, actor-writer-producer Kirk Cameron cannot reach scores of American children or their families in many U.S. cities via the public library system because over 50 public libraries have either outright rejected him or not responded to requests on his behalf.
Read full story

A Fast Growing Network of Conservative Groups Is Fueling a Surge in Book Bans
December 12, 2022
(New York Times) Some groups are new, some are longstanding. Some are local, others national. Over the past two years they have become vastly more organized, well funded, effective–and criticized.
Read full story

Opinion: The school library used to be a sanctuary. Now it’s a battleground
October 31, 2022
(CNN) In September 2021, protesters ambushed the board meeting of the New Jersey school district where I have worked as a high school librarian since 2005. The protesters railed against “Gender Queer,” a memoir in graphic novel form by Maia Kobabe, and “Lawn Boy,” a coming-of-age novel by Jonathan Evison. They spewed selected sentences from the Evison book, while brandishing isolated images from Kobabe’s.But the real sucker punch came when one protester branded me a pedophile, pornographer and groomer of children. After a successful career, with retirement on the horizon, to be cast as a villain was heartbreaking.
Read full story

After Her Book Displays Drew Criticism, Librarian Elissa Malespina Lost Her Job. She’s Here to Say “I’m Not OK with This.”
October 13, 2022
(School Library Journal) Elissa Malespina was shelving books in the library at her new school. She started with the biography section, arranging titles to make the shelves more appealing to students at Union (NJ) High School, where she is the new school library media specialist.
Barack Obama. Rosa Parks.
She paused and debated which book to select next.“I better go with Colin Powell,” she thought. “Because then it’s a more conservative approach.”
That decision was not wrong, says Malespina, but the creeping doubt is new.
Read full story

Links provided to external (non-MBLC) news stories are done so as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the MBLC. MBLC bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality, or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.


Banned Books Week 2016

It’s humpday of Banned Books Week 2016. This year’s focus is on diversity in literature; books that get banned or challenged are disproportionately written by diverse authors.

celebrate diversity for banned books week, september 25-october 1, 2016

For the uninitiated, Banned Books Week is “an annual event celebrating the freedom to read… it highlights the value of free and open access to information, [and] brings together the entire book community; librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types, in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.” More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982, according to the American Library Association (ALA).

Throughout the U.S. at libraries, schools, universities, and other institutions, “read-a-thons” and “read-outs” of books banned over the years will increase awareness of both censorship and the importance of the freedom to read. This year, virtual read-outs from around the country are featured on their own YouTube channel as well.

the top ten most challenged books of 2015 - titles & authors listed below image

2015 Book Challenges in Detail

(from the Banned Books Week website)

  1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
    Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
    Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
  3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
    Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
  4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
    Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
  5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
    Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
  6. The Holy Bible
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
  7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
    Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
  8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
    Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
  10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
    Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).