This year’s display included “Flamer” by Mike Curato, “The Hate U
Give” by Angie Thomas and more, with past year’s including other
well-known books such as “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “To Kill a
Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
JILL TUTHILL / THE QUADRANGLE
By Jill Tuthill, Asst. Arts & Entertainment Editor
The O’Malley Library’s staff celebrated Banned Books Week with their annual display, featuring titles that are often challenged in school curriculums throughout the United States.
These books often include content regarding race, sex education, religion or LGBTQIA+ characters or themes that are claimed to be sexually explicit, according to the American Library Association (ALA).
The display began on Sept. 22 in alignment with this year’s national Banned Books Week, which ran until Sept. 28. However, O’Malley’s display has continued past the end of the week to allow for more students to see it.
The display changes each year, but a list of titles that have been challenged the most are gathered by Digital Humanities and Research Librarian Lauren Paradise.
This year’s display included “Flamer” by Mike Curato, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas and more, with the past year’s including other well-known books such as “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. The books this year were supplemented with graphics presenting the figures on challenged books, composed by the ALA. One of the graphics states that the number of unique titles that were challenged jumped from 2,571 in 2022 to a steep 4,240 in 2023.
Sarah Sheehan, director of reference in the library, said that Banned Books Week is especially relevant for students, whether or not they’re aware of their proximity to censored titles.
“One of the things a lot of students don’t realize is that books that they have read may be under challenge,” Sheehan said. “They challenge Harry Potter every year because [they say] it promotes witchcraft. Doesn’t matter that it taught an entire generation to read, right? And especially books that feature uncomfortable themes are always targets.”
Depending on the context, books can be challenged by taxpayers, parents or patrons of a specific library. The board of that library then decides based on the reasons given by the challenger whether or not the book should be pulled from the shelves. However, according to Paradise, there has been a recent shift in the way people are challenging books, and the process has turned away from being a local, individual process to more of a legislative one as people begin to challenge books in larger groups.
Amy Handfield, associate librarian and director of access services, has been primarily responsible for the curation of the display since she was first hired by Manhattan University in 2012. Handfield believes the reason for the rise in book challenges is the challengers’ lack of recognition of individual freedom to information and the right to access it.
“You’re not just deciding for your child, per se, or yourself; you want to decide for everyone,” Handfield said. “If one person decides that something’s bad, what determines if that’s right? You might have one person that thinks Kurt Vonnegut is ‘just dirty’ or something, but it’s more than that. And apparently, it’s growing.”
Paradise attributes the challenges to changes in the ways of thinking about younger generations and whether they’re exposed to content that is appropriate for their age, or if they are developing in ways that are similar enough to the way older generations grew up.
“I think a lot of the stuff in this country seems to stem from worries about kids, and what the kids are reading, and how the kids are different from how an older generation thinks they were at that age, or different from how an older generation feels like kids should be,” Paradise said. “And I think reasonable people disagree about whether a kid should be able to check out anything they want when they’re 12, when they’re 16, when they’re 18, or when they’re 8. And the group that thinks that there should be restrictions on that is getting a lot louder right now.”
Handfield and Paradise agreed that the importance of Banned Books Week nationally and at MU is difficult to boil down to one thing, but said that the foremost reason that they do it is to facilitate conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Handfield emphasized that open discussion is important for people to decide how they fit into the picture of censorship, rights to information and freedom of opinion.
“Just the awareness that it happens, whether you agree with it or not,” Handfield said. “And to give a venue for it to be discussed and or even just thought about.”
The banned books exhibit has been an annual tradition at the library since at least 2012, but Handfield and Paradise guess that it has happened for at least a few decades before they arrived.
Handfield’s upcoming Halloween themed display is currently in the works, and the library staff encourages students to visit when it goes up on Oct. 15.