Courage and Cowards and Books, Oh My!
The relentless onslaught of evil, banned books news, and some suggestions for good reads
Friends,
Although I post Be a Cactus early on Sunday mornings (early in California, anyway), I usually write posts/essays on Fridays and record them on Saturday. So, here I am on Friday night.
My God.
The level of today’s dysfunction and betrayal has me feeling shame and terror all at once. When I consider the Ukrainian people and Zelenskyy, I think about the ‘Greatest Generation’ of WWII—the self-sacrificing, courageous people whom we talk up in our schools and books about whom we fill our libraries. How many first person WWII (primary source) narratives did I buy? More than I can remember. Why? They are examples for teens, models of people who gave much, sometimes all, for the greater cause of freedom.
I feel today’s Ukrainian people are another greatest generation. Zelenskyy is fighting for the values of democracy.
Trump summed up his own motivation at the end: This is going to make great television.
This is the man on whom our futures depend.
Just one more resource (because—relentless)
I had thought I was done with political action suggestions. Because of Friday’s implosion, I want to add one more resource to the lists I’ve made in past posts:
Chop Wood, Carry Water from
Friends recommended this one to me a while back. I was already subscribing to several political action resources, so it took me a minute to look into this one. But, oh boy, is it wonderful. Lots of easy-to-perform daily actions. If you are in a state of despair (or something akin to it), you may still be able to act. Craven sets up the foundations—click through directly to your senators/representative, sample phone scripts, top priorities of the day, etc.
More Friday
I know today (Friday) was the shopping boycott date. I’m not sure how well that worked. I happened to be in a shopping mall because I was giving blood and the venue was one of the closed shops. Afterward, I went up the escalator and walked through the mall to the exit nearest my parked car. There weren’t many people around, which might or might not be typical for a Friday afternoon, but all the young people I saw had bagged purchases.
I also went to the library and picked up two books, which was a fun thing to do on a no-shopping day. I confess, I went to Joann fabrics because it’s going bankrupt and isn’t part of the equation. (While I was there, two young women were talking about just that, and we had a little convo.) I got some ribbon. I need it for the fabric bookmarks I’m making as thank yous for people who buy my upcoming novel, Keep Sweet, directly from the publisher.
Analysis of banned books
So, there is an awful lot of book news this week. I had wanted to continue with my discussion of the top banned books. Last week was #4 Sold, and I have things to say about #5 13 Reasons Why. I’m going to save that for next week because of the sheer craziness of this week. Too much stuff for one post.
I’m separating this news from the article links in ‘Part 2’ because it’s more than a weekly update. PEN America conducted an analysis of the books banned in the 2023-24 school year. I see that in the area of bans for explicit sexual content, the data agrees with what I’ve been saying here—generally, there is little explicit content and what’s there has value.
PEN: “New Analysis Shows Stories about Disabled People, Immigrants, Social Activism and Bullying Are Also Targets and Debunks Exaggerated Claims about Explicit Sex in Books.”
The entire article is worth reading:
The quoted sections below are discontinuous and the emphasis (words in bold) is mine.
The removal of books from public schools focused on people of color, race and racism, and LGBTQ+ subjects continues as part of a concerted and dangerous campaign nationwide, according to new analysis of thousands of banned titles by PEN America. These topics are highly targeted among banned books across genres and reading levels—fiction, history, biography, memoir, even picture books.
Of the 4,218 unique banned titles in the 2023-2024 school year, 1,534 or 36% featured fictional characters or real people of color. In analyzing banned history and biography titles alone, PEN America found 44% featured people of color, with 26% of banned historical and biographical titles specifically featuring Black people. The comprehensive analysis is based on PEN America’s documentation of the more than 10,000 instances of book bans nationwide, as school districts banned many of the same titles. The movement to ban books originated in a coordinated network of groups that also largely espouses white supremacist and Christian nationalist ideology.
Proponents of book bans often label titles with consensual sexual experiences as “explicit.” But PEN America found their rhetoric to be exaggerated. Out of all 4,218 unique titles examined, 31% had references to sexual experiences but with minimal detail. Only 13% described the sexual experiences “on the page”. Books with sexual content allow students to raise questions about this aspect of human experience, which can help guide them. PEN America’s analysis showed other books offering real-world experience on important topics were among those banned at higher levels— on death and grief, violence, abuse, and mental health issues.
Similarly, books about race and racism (20% of all banned titles) illuminate the ways in which these factors have impacted history and everyday life. Books on activism and social movements (15%) illustrate real and fictional stories about those who have worked to better the world in which they live. Books that touch on incarceration and policing (13%) can increase young people’s understanding of prison and policing systems, and foster empathy towards those impacted. Books about immigration or immigrants and refugees (7%) help raise awareness and dispel misinformation.
AI mistakes
I know all creative people are worried about AI stealing their work and using it for free. Another worry is how it can disseminate misinformation. I’ve noticed recently that my Apple products (phone, iPad) give an AI summary of emails in the email notifications. This is a thing I didn't ask for, don’t need, and that wastes energy resources. It also throws out some misinformation about what’s in the email. Here is a recent example:
Notification:
Actual text in article:
This sort of thing—misnaming an assassin as also a hero is a pretty big oops. I was talking to my kids about this. One of my sons (a linguist) said that’s what happens when there’s no semantics. AI reports give new meaning to the complaint “it’s just semantics,” doesn’t it? Why yes, yes it is.
Book Recommendations: What I’m Reading
Because there has been so much in the banned books circus for many weeks, I never got back to reporting on a few of the books I’d read and listened to. So, I’m including those now.
I mentioned a few weeks back that I was reading The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk. I really enjoyed it for the realistic portrayal of misogyny and the weird, but very real, theories about women’s capabilities (mental, spiritual, etc.). The spooky elements were fun, too, especially since the misogyny played into the creepy atmosphere. It didn’t feel like a typical book from a Nobel Prize winner, but that didn’t bother me. It did bother critic Robert Rubsam who wrote Has Olga Tokarczuk Been Struck by the Nobel Curse? in Vulture:
Yet the best word to describe Empusium would not be horror but fear: not the reader’s, or any character’s, but the author’s. Tokarczuk seems desperately afraid that you not miss the point of her book or take away the wrong lesson. Philosophical ideas are presented only in their bluntest, most outrageous form because she can’t risk allowing the reader to believe them. She finds their misogyny odious, and so you must, too. Rather than learning from the novel, it ends up instructing you. So, too, the characterizations, which dictate exactly how we are meant to respond.
I finished Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow by Steve Almond. It’s a craft book for writers. I found it worthwhile. It includes specific ideas for correcting story problems. I’m sharing with my writers’ workshops.
I also mentioned that I was listening to The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. Alma, a successful Dominican American author, retires from writing (and teaching) when her stories refuse to come to completion. She’s inherited land in the Dominican Republic and decides to move there to create a cemetery for all her unfinished work. People may only visit it if they can tell a story through an intercom at the gate.
I loved the stories that were told from beyond the grave and also the idea that sometimes they are not available to the author who wants to write them. They must remain the property of those who lived them. This novel is lots of fun, especially the relationship among the author and her three sisters.
This week, I listened to Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch. It’s a memoir told in free-flowing essays. Yuknavitch doesn’t discuss details of her abuse by her father, but the reader’s overall understanding is that she had a childhood and young adulthood full of trauma. There is so much darkness, and yet she creates light through her telling. Revisiting the stories through the memoir and through her fiction has enabled her to alter them. Isn’t that, after all, what memory does? Reading Waves,I felt that my life, which has included a bit of its own trauma, was actually pretty basic. (There’s a lot here for those who enjoy banning books to hate.)
“I do not intend to mine my personal life for dramatic scenes and serve them up. … I mean to ask if there is a way to read my own past differently, using what I have learned from literature: how stories repeat and reverberate and release us from the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions.”
A writer’s way of making sense of one’s life. And it works.
I started a few other books, but just barely, so they can wait until I’m further along.
Part 2: Library and book ban news
574 books removed from Monroe County Schools [Tennessee] libraries from 10News
Books about the Holocaust, World War II, race, religion and LGBTQ+ topics are among the list of books pulled as a result of the state's Age-Appropriate Materials Act.
The article includes a database of the full list. Some of the books: To Kill a Mockingbird, The 57 Bus, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Of Mice and Men, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, The Outsiders, Grapes of Wrath, Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space, and the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book.
Director of Schools Kristi Windsor … declined an interview twice, but did confirm the books were removed to comply with the law.
PEN America issued the following comment today on the relocation of 30,000 books in Livingston Parish, LA public libraries while librarians read through young adult titles to decide which may contain unacceptable sexual content.
Sabrina Baeta, senior program manager in PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said: “Any public library relocating 30,000 books from its young adult to adult section is simply astonishing. What’s happening in Livingston Parish libraries shows the harrowing impact that vague legislation and a manufactured moral panic around obscenity can have on a community. Even if only temporary in the long run, readers of YA books will lose access to shelf after shelf of books; not to mention the immense burden it places on the librarians tasked with reviewing more than a lifetime of reading materials.”
Georgia bill seeks penalties for librarians over restricted books from Fox 5 Atlanta
Senate Bill 74, sponsored by Republican Sen. Max Burns, would impose misdemeanor charges on librarians who knowingly sell, loan, distribute, or exhibit materials harmful to minors. Supporters argue that similar restrictions already apply to teachers and coaches. However, librarians who make a good faith effort to remove flagged content would not face charges.
CT library book banning bills raise concern among some lawmakers from CT Mirror
Several Republican lawmakers spoke out Wednesday against the effort to pass legislation designed to deter book banning in Connecticut libraries. They argue that parents should have direct input into which books are taken off library shelves, particularly regarding those that contain material about sexuality.
This is an interesting case. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt to the parent who is challenging books in their own school library after their own kid has read them. This parent sounds reasonable in not blaming librarians. I do think that the author of the article did a poor job in reporting this—the two books should be named, so we readers have an idea of what is in them. The local control issue is one I agree with. But do opponents want every challenged book to be removed? (That’s not local control, that’s censorship.) The proposed law protects librarians from criminal charges over book selection. That’s a good idea in our current environment, so, again, the author of the article needs to discuss the proposed law and the objections in more specific terms.
Two stacks of books sat in front of the podium representing literature that concerns opponents of the legislation, including “Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human (A Graphic Novel)” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan and “You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty and Other Things” by Cory Silverberg. …
Mona Colwell, a mother of three, author and educator from Old Lyme, spoke at the press conference about two fantasy books she found troubling that her son brought home with themes related to drug use, violence, sex and suicide.
Colwell said she wouldn’t have a problem with those books being included in a public library in a section for adults. But she was horrified that a librarian recommended those books for summer reading for her 10-year-old …
“Librarians choose these materials based on recommendations from the American Library Association. Librarians are not going to be able to read everything. But once you read it, you have to be thinking: is this appropriate for a 10-year-old kid?” Colwell said.
…
The law is also aimed at protecting librarians by giving them immunity from being sued or prosecuted for good will actions related to their work, and it includes language that empowers them to sue others for harassment.
Thanks for being here!