Banned Books Week: Akwaeke Emezi
Queer Characters and Silencing the ‘Other’; this week’s banned books news
Hi Friends!
It’s officially Banned Books Week. I’ve been ‘celebrating’ for several weeks now, posting on specific books that have been challenged often and over time, showing why librarians fight to have them in the collection (links at the end of this post). Today I want to discuss a more recent author—Akwaeke Emezi— and the issue of erasure through book banning. I realized as I was gathering information that I also want to discuss Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction. So—I may continue with this series into October. It’s not like the problem is going away any time soon!
Akwaeke Emezi
Emezi is a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree (2018) and a TIME Magazine Next Generation Leader (June 2021 Cover). They have won the Stonewall Book Award for Nonfiction (2022), the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award), the Ilube Nommo Award, and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa.
I happened upon Akwaeke Emezi’s work after reading a review of Freshwater in the LA Times. It sounded like it was different from anything I’d read, so I bought the book. I found it astonishingly original.
In Freshwater, Ada, born in Nigeria, develops separate selves as a result of having an Ogbanje (a godlike Igbo spirit) inside her. With "one foot on the other side," Ada comes of age and attends college in America. The group of selves within her grows in power and agency, and their protection of her is, paradoxically, a danger. Being enthralled by this novel, I later read Emezi’s Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir about being a creative spirit in the human world. It discusses gender and the human body. I looked for more of their work and found they had two YA novels, Pet and Bitter. Though Pet was published first, I happened upon Bitter and read it. As it turned out, that was okay because it’s a prequel to Pet.
Bitter
Kirkus, a well-regarded review journal, called Bitter (2022) “A compact, urgent, and divine novel.” The eponymous protagonist studies at a school for creatives in the city of Lucille. Through her artwork, she joins students from a nearby school to protest social injustice. In doing so, she unleashes an avenging angel who causes damage and death.
The characters in Bitter are, generally, Black and queer. Their desire for social justice serves as an entry to discussion about the subject. Bitter also engenders conversation about the role of creatives and their contributions to society, a discussion that is anathema to censors. It would be a great teen book club choice.
Pet
Pet is a National Book Award Finalist, a Stonewall Book Award Winner and a Walter Dean Myers Honor Book (last week’s post was about Myers).
Pet centers on the next generation of the city of Lucille. The protagonist, Jam, is Bitter’s transgender daughter. This generation of kids is taught that there are no more monsters. The Angels (activists) eliminated them in Bitter’s youth through their fight for social justice and equality. Lucille appears to be the model city, safe for all. However, Jam accidentally awakens what appears to be a monster (as in Bitter, the avenging angel comes from Bitter’s art). Jam learns that things are not what they appear to be. She has called to life, not a monster, but rather a monster hunter named Pet.
The usual spoilers
Pet tells Jam it has come to life in order to destroy the monster in her best friend’s (Redemption’s) house. No one believes the monster hunter or Jam since the monsters had previously been vanquished. But Jam and Pet persist and find a human monster, a child sexual predator. Pet would like to kill the predator, but Jam doesn’t allow it. Instead, the predator is taken off stage and punished. He returns with his eyes put out.
On Instagram, Emezi wrote, “Pet has actually been banned in Texas and pulled from some libraries, all because Jam is a trans girl protagonist. But we move nonetheless!” Now, I’m thinking there are a number of reasons the censors don’t want these books in the library. Having a transgender protagonist is one, but the discussion of incestous child abuse is another. (In recent posts, I have pointed to the fact that books with sexual abuse are often challenged and banned.)
Why librarians want Bitter and Pet in the collection
Both books have questions about social justice and equality. They are entry points to thought and discussions on issues important to the mission of public schools.
Both books engender conversation about the role of creative people in making life better and how art affects society.
Pet reminds us that sometimes the wolf lives in the house, in disguise, and that children need to be protected. “Redemption said no one should be allowed to use their hands this way.” (I’m an advocate of books that discuss abuse because they help healing. And, yes, my upcoming YA novel Keep Sweet is about escaping spiritual and sexual abuse. June 2025, friends!)
Pet engenders discussion about the question of what a monster is and whether a utopia is even possible.
Both books advocate for truth telling.
Both books have Black and queer characters and we need to have all teens represented in our YA collections.
And here’s something that occurred to me when I was reading Pet: the scene where the abuser re-entered with his eyes put out reminded me of the Ancient Greek play by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex. Oedipus accidentally commits incest and punishes himself (also off stage) by putting his eyes out. Since teens sometimes read Oedipus Rex in school, I wondered if some smart kid would end up writing a compare/contrast paper about this. It would be interesting. Not just for the incest/putting out the eyes, but for a society that was plagued, appears to be great, and then is plagued again. For the monster hidden in plain sight. So many connections! 1
I say again: this is about erasing the “other”
Book censorship is far more threatening than it was ten years ago because it erases anyone who doesn’t look or think like the censor. Teens who are stigmatized need books validating their experiences. As the character of C.S. Lewis says in William Nicholson’s “Shadowlands,” “We read to know we are not alone.” Silencing diverse stories segues into an effort to protect teens from uncomfortable narratives. A parent’s objection to the assignment of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” in an AP literature class made me wonder: When should students study difficult subjects? The goal of AP classes, after all, is to earn college credit.
Why We Need Books that Challenge Us
Access to such novels provides teens the opportunity to develop a trifecta of life skills:
compassion
imaginative thinking, and
the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas.
As Barbara Kingsolver noted, “Fiction has a unique capacity to bring difficult issues to a broad readership . . ., creating empathy in a reader’s heart for the theoretical stranger. Its capacity for invoking moral and social responsibility is enormous.”
A vocal minority can keep marginalized students from books that validate their lives; they can keep abused students from open discussions about their trauma; they can keep all teens from accessing works that empathize with historically underrepresented people.
Don’t allow other people to make that choice for your kids. Fight for “freadom.”
Links to my recent posts on YA banned books—please share to celebrate ‘freadom’!
Speak and Shout: Reviews of Laurie Halse Anderson’s books on sexual assault and book ban resources
A Monster of a Novel: Walter Dean Myers
Looking for Alaska: Finding Hope in an Imperfect World
Killing Mr. Griffin, Birthing Readers
Why is This Book Banned?: A look at A Court of Thorns and Roses
The Poet X, Teen Voices, and Censorship
Devil in the Grove: A Subject Teens Need to Read About
Part 2
Library and book challenge/ban news
Book bans cost Utah taxpayers thousands of dollars. Here’s how much two school districts spent.
Two Utah school districts removed all 13 titles now banned in public schools statewide — and collectively spent more than $29,000 to do so.
Defending ‘Gender Queer’ from Book Bans from Publishers Weekly
In this week's special edition of Endnotes, we take a look at what happened after Gender Queer. (Oni, 2019) by Maia Kobabe was banned. According to the ALA, Kobabe's graphic memoir was the most challenged book of 2023.
If Project 2025 is enacted, politicians censoring library books will go nationwide | Opinion from the Sacramento Bee
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-backed “playbook” that is widely expected to shape the policies of a potential second Donald Trump administration, is explicitly gunning for librarians. In his foreword to Project 2025, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts argues that “children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” He goes on to say, even more explicitly, “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children … has no claim to First Amendment protection. … Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.”
The Battle Against Book Bans Rages On: PW Talks with Kelly Jensen from Publishers Weekly
PW checks in with the 'Book Riot' writer, whose weekly Censorship News column tracks efforts to ban books in school and libraries.
Under Tennessee’s stricter school library law, some books quietly disappear from Chalkbeat
‘Phantom book banning’: Censorship in the shadows
The quiet censorship is being noticed by First Amendment advocates, from the ACLU of Tennessee to Julia Garnett, who graduated last spring from Hendersonville High School in Sumner County, north of Nashville.
Garnett started a free speech club at her high school during her senior year. Now a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts, she is the youth spokesperson for the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, Sept. 22-28.
Last week, she searched her alma mater’s online library catalog to look for books by Sarah J. Maas and Ellen Hopkins, whose popular young adult novels are frequently challenged or banned due to their mature themes and sexual content.
None were listed.
“They used to be there, but they’ve disappeared,” said Garnett. “I call it phantom book banning, where libraries are being censored, but not in a public way. I think that’s what scares me the most.”
Discussing book bans with Dave Eggers from the Chris Hayes podcast
Florida Attorney General's Office heading out of state to defend Texas library book bans from the Tallahassee Democrat
After arguing for more than a year on behalf of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration that school officials can remove any books for any reason, including objections to LGBTQ and race-related content, attorneys for the state now are making the same defense for community libraries — in Texas.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office joined 17 other red states in filing a court brief defending a Texas county's removal of 17 books from its library system. They claim that book removals are "government speech" and therefore don't violate others’ First Amendment rights.
Vic’s note: I know I keep bringing articles about this idea of book removal as government speech, but it’s important (and scary). If this is found by the courts to be valid, it means that what’s available in the library will depend on the prejudices and bias of the current office holders.
How Black Parents Are Fighting Against Growing Book Bans They Say Are Efforts 'To Evade History' From Essence
This Middle Tennessee county just voted to remove Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' and 5 other books from schools. See the list from the Tennessean
"Beloved," by Toni Morrison, who in 1993 won the Nobel Prize in Literature
"Queen of Shadows" by Sarah J. Maas
"Tower of Dawn" by Sarah J. Maas
"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
"Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire
My son told me if I said this, some go-go book banner would ask to remove Oedipus Rex from the curriculum for violence and incest. But I told him we at Be a Cactus are a small community of hundreds, so no Moms for Liberty folks will ever see what I think about! 😊