Before It Was Banned #1

Devil in the Grove: first in a series of posts on my notes/reviews of books before they were banned or before their subjects were considered too difficult for teens.

Sadly relatable to events of this decade.

Hello friends!

I lost several days’ productivity this week to the flu. It was unfortunate timing as I have three projects I’m supposed to be revising. Since I haven’t had time to write an essay this week, I thought I’d try something else I’ve wanted to do here: look back at notes and reviews I wrote long ago about books that are now being banned/challenged/censored. 

As a teacher librarian I read thousands of books for work. I took notes on any that I liked and wrote reviews on hundreds of them. When teachers brought their classes into the library to select reading books, they would ask for a ‘book talk’ to start the class period. When I really liked a book, I’d buy 25 copies of it—five for each of the teacher’s five classes of the day. Because when I’d chat up a book to the teens, lots of them wanted to check it out. 

I’d also talk up a lot of books when students were required to read in a specific genre such as biography or historical nonfiction. Book talking and book advisory were the parts of my job that were the most fun. I got to engage with a lot of teens about their interests and help them find the right read. 

This post is the first in what I hope will be a short series about currently challenged and banned books—an honest look at what I thought of the books before I ever dreamed they would be widely censored and removed from library shelves. For today, let’s have a look at what I thought of Devil in the Grove when I read it. Later I want to look at a couple of books that have been banned from all public schools in the state of Utah and several books that have been removed from an Iowa school district based on their descriptions in an AI program. (Links to articles about these stories are below in the book ban news.) 

While Devil in the Grove isn’t a top-of-list banned book, I think of it this week because Norma Padgett, accuser of the exonerated ‘Groveland Four,’ died at age 92 on July 12. I read about her death this week. Her obituary’s subtitle is: “Her claim of rape against four Black men in 1949 precipitated what is now recognized as a grotesque miscarriage of justice in the Jim Crow South.” That miscarriage of justice included the deaths of two young men and long jail terms for another two, one of whom just escaped execution. And it is just the kind of historical narrative that the book banning crowd doesn’t want teens to know about because it might make them feel bad. 

Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King

Review written in 2021. Book published in 2012.

An article in yesterday’s LA Times about the ‘Groveland Four’ being exonerated (they are all dead) caught my eye. I happened to have just finished reading a great book about the case: Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. The article states: “Gilbert King, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 book about the case, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, attended the Monday hearing with Thurgood Marshall Jr., the son of the NAACP lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court justice who defended Irvin during his second trial.”

Devil in the Grove is about Thurgood Marshall, pre-Brown v. Board of Education. The major action begins in 1946, when Black veterans, having come home from fighting in WWII, were beaten in the streets if they dared wear their uniforms. The book has a lot of background on various work the NAACP was doing at the time, particularly research for equity and integration in schools. However, as indicated in the title, its main subject is the work of Marshall and others in a Groveland, FL case of rape accusation, an accusation against four Black men that was clearly false. A case that had all the elements of systemic racism, corruption, lying, and cheating that you could imagine. Every single one in a single case. The corrupt, murderous (and likely criminally involved in a gambling ring) Sheriff McCall feels like a caricature, and, yet, he is all too real. 

I didn’t start this on purpose thinking of the current trials—the Rittenhouse shame and the Arbery case. It’s an audiobook I bought quite a while ago and forgot I had. (I buy a lot more books than I can read and sometimes find titles in my own personal backlist.)  I found it when I was searching ‘unread titles’ on Audible. But the Rittenhouse case and the Arbery murders were being conducted as I went through the book. That this particular case took place in 1949 is relevant now. Sadly, there are moments when I was thinking “seventy-five years ago or today?” 

As it won the Pulitzer Prize, it’s probably evident that this is a great book. But now is a particularly consequential moment to read it as much of the subject matter plays out in our national news and is debated in our legislative bodies. The reader also learns about heroic people who are not as well known as Thurgood Marshall. The story of Harry T. Moore, executive director of the Florida NAACP, is particularly tragic. When he calls for the arrest of Sheriff McCall for the murder of one of the Groveland Four, his house is firebombed by (never found) KKK members on Christmas Night 1951. 

High School Housekeeping: Devil in the Grove is an important book because it tells the story of a representative injustice, one not taught or discussed in school. It’s adult nonfiction that I recommend for high school students.

***

Okay—that’s all I said about it because I don’t like to give away much of the story in a review, but after the case was to be retried, Sheriff McCall, who was transporting  Samuel Shepherd and  Walter Irvin to jail, pulled out on a country road and shot them, killing Shepherd. Irvin only lived by pretending to be dead. 

While I understand the circumstances of the injustice against the Groveland Four are different from those of Sonya Massey’s murder last month by Sangamon County, IL Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, there is a through line: Racism seems likely to be a part of that through line. Without a doubt, the fact that people whose incompetency and impulsiveness is both wide-ranging and well-known are allowed to be officers of the law and given guns is as much a problem as it was in 1949. From CNN:

After being discharged from the Army for serious misconduct and a history of driving under the influence, Grayson was employed since 2020 by six Illinois law enforcement agencies – at three of them, as a part-time officer, employment records show.

Grayson is part of what law enforcement officials and experts call America’s legion of “wandering officers” who drift from police department to police department – sometimes even after having been fired, forced to resign or convicted of a crime.

Happy birthday to James Baldwin

James Baldwin’s 100th birthday

The NYT has a photo collection of James Baldwin, which celebrates his 100th birthday. (He died at 63.) This is a gift link, so you can access it. 

Villains and antagonists

Last week I talked about a book that purposefully gives the reader a villain rather than an antagonist, so it’s more fun to hate on her. I’m querying a novel that has an antagonist in a similar situation to that villain’s. It you are working to give your ‘bad guy’ some redeeming traits, this essay of advice by Jillian Forsberg in Writer Unboxed is worth reading: 

How to Turn Your Muppet-Like Villain Into Something Believable

Library book ban news

LOCAL NO LONGER: 4 NEW LAWS AND POLICIES BRING BOOK BANNING TO THE STATE LEVEL from PEN

A new spate of state laws and policies is giving lie to the idea that banning books is about families making decisions for their own children. In Utah, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina, state lawmakers have actually moved away from so-called“parental rights” – and into government-mandated book bans. 

The new laws and policies revolve around the idea of age-appropriate materials, which is historically a community determination. The new laws, however, move the decision up to the state: in Utah, for example, HB 29 will require all schools in the state to remove a book that is deemed to be “objective sensitive material” by just a few school districts in the state. In effect, the law will make the objections of just a handful of parents the law of the land.

Beaufort Co. decided not to ban most of its challenged books. Can the state overrule it? from Yahoo News

Titles like “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson could be banned based on the new regulation despite Beaufort County review committees returning them to shelves. That is if the state school board determines they have descriptions of “sexual conduct.”

Opponents of the regulation say that S.C. Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver’s regulation is an overreach and invalidates Beaufort County’s book review process. They also raised concerns over the legislative process. The policy was proposed months after Weaver ended a 50-year partnership with the South Carolina Association of School Libraries, the organization that represents the state’s school librarians, in August. The policy took effect without a vote from the South Carolina General Assembly on June 25, 2024, following a state law that allows proposed regulations to become law if not voted on within 120 days.

One more on the same subject: More States Are Passing Book Banning Rules. Here’s What They Say. From New York Times (thanks to reader Ellen Estilai for pointing this article)

New laws governing book content in Utah, Idaho, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Yes, the library budgets are affected.

Texas deputy constable tried to charge school librarians with felonies for distributing books from Lonestar Live

Scott London, a Hood County chief deputy constable, didn’t just accuse three Granbury Independent School District librarians of allowing children to access books he thought were obscene. He visited schools, spoke to district staff, issued subpoenas, obtained student records and drafted criminal complaints.

London sought felony charges for distributing harmful material to a minor, which carry a penalty of two to 10 years in prison and fines up to $10,000.

In June 2024, Hood County District Attorney Ryan Sinclair declined London’s request to indict the librarians, citing a lack of evidence.

“Granbury ISD respects the due diligence of the district attorney and wholeheartedly agrees that this investigation was without merit,” the district told NBC.

This marked the end of London’s investigation, but the damage had been done. One of the three targeted librarians left Granbury ISD as a result.

…

Six books were highlighted in London’s investigation, including “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “Gone” by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson, which depicts the consequences of an inappropriate student-teacher relationship, and “Fade” by Lisa McMann, in which a teen investigates sexual predators at a high school. The three other titles came from Sarah J. Maas’ “A Court of Thorns and Roses” fantasy series — one of which was among the top 10 most-challenged books in Texas last year.

Some of the records London obtained had students’ personal information, including the names of kids who checked out books he was investigating. He also sought information about students who volunteered at school libraries.

It’s official: These 13 books are now banned from all public schools in Utah

A list of the first-ever books to be banned from every public school in Utah was released Friday

• “Blankets” by Craig Thompson.

• “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “A Court of Silver Flames” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “A Court of Wings and Ruin” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “Empire of Storms” by Sarah J. Maas.

• “Fallout” by Ellen Hopkins.

• “Forever” by Judy Blume.

• “Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur.

• “Oryx & Crake” by Margaret Atwood.

• “Tilt” by Ellen Hopkins.

• “What Girls Are Made Of” by Elana K. Arnold.

AI Is Being Used to Ban Books From School Libraries from MSN

The Mason City Community School District, according to local paper, The Gazette, reportedly used an unnamed AI software to scan school library books ahead of the 2023-2024 academic year. Board members reportedly compiled a list of “commonly challenged books” and used the AI system to scan the list for supposed sexual content. Those flagged books were then removed from 7-12th grade school library collections and “stored in the Administrative Center.” These 19 books were removed following the AI analysis, according to The Gazette.

• ​​Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

• Sold by Patricia McCormick

• A Court of Mist and Fury (series) by Sarah J. Maas

• Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

• Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Looking for Alaska by John Green

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• Crank by Ellen Hopkins

• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

• An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker

• Feed by M.T. Anderson

• Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger

• Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

“Frankly, we have more important things to do than spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to protect kids from books,” Exman recently told PopSci. “At the same time, we do have a legal and ethical obligation to comply with the law. Our goal here really is a defensible process.” The Mason City School Board did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

This is a maddening video of one mom’s library experience in Idaho now that restrictions on juvenile library use are in place:

@carlyjdotComing to a library near you 😭 #library #greenscreen #scarletttok #bookban #momtok #lordoftherings #harrypotter #project2025 #librariesoftiktok

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'Not a badge of honor': how book bans affect Indigenous literature from NPR

And we speak with the scholar Debbie Reese about her lifelong work to correct misrepresentations of Indigenous people in children's literature. On the podcast, she talks about books that she wouldn't recommend. But we also asked her to share with us some of her favorite books with nuanced, full representations of Indigenous people and stories. Her recommendations are [included in the article], which include the book title, the author's name and tribal affiliation, and what stood out to the book for Reese.

A New Era for Banned Books Week: from Book Riot

But, perhaps most infuriatingly of all, this has been accomplished through a contagious and pernicious lie: that there is pornography in the kids’ section. And that teachers and librarians are pedophiles, bent on grooming our children for sexual abuse. 

A horrifying prospect! If it were true. 

It’s not. But that doesn’t seem to matter. That these are life-ruining accusations has not slowed down anyone bent on banning books. Nationwide our fellow citizens spring up, deputized by their fear and resentment, and lob these bombs onto educators just doing their jobs. It’s a neat bit of psychological warfare. Because as soon as you have to say “I’m not a pedophile!” you sound, unfortunately, just like a pedophile. And so institutions scramble to respond, wasting massive amounts of time and energy in institutions already short on funding and staff, fear spreads, and whole communities of educators are brought to heel and quietly start to censor themselves. 

Alrighty! Time for some 7Up and Excedrin. Hope you are well. If I’m still behind next week, it will be my chance to post the long-promised gratuitous dog photos! Onward and upward!