We were relieved last week to learn the Scholastic Book Fair had ended an initiative making it easier for schools to opt out of selling books with racial, disability and LGBTQ+ themes.
Scholastic’s announcement came after backlash to a policy it had enacted earlier this year, giving schools the option whether to include in their fairs a separate collection of books labeled “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice.” The collection of 64 books included topics such as racism and gender identity, and titles that have been targeted by conservative legislators across the country in recent years.
Other titles in the optional collection included stories of prominent civil rights figures and accounts of key moments in U.S. history, like Andrea Davis Pinkney’s “Because of You, John Lewis,” Colin Kaepernick’s “I Color Myself Different” and “I Am Ruby Bridges,” written by the activist herself.
The children’s publisher explained the changes, which affected only elementary-level book fairs, were a response to the wave of restrictions passed by states around the country limiting certain books and topics deemed inappropriate for schools.
Scholastic told the Washington Post it created the collection of “diverse titles” as a workaround to what it called “an almost impossible dilemma” of either dropping certain titles from their fairs or risk making educators vulnerable to being fired, sued or prosecuted.
The move rightly angered many authors and educators, including poet Amanda Gorman, whose “Change Sings” was among the titles in the “Share Every Story” collection. Gorman said in an Instagram video that Scholastic’s decision “felt like a betrayal.”
Scholastic reversed course, saying in a statement last week, “We understand now that the separate nature of the collection has caused confusion and feelings of exclusion.” The collection will not be offered after the end of this calendar year.
The iconic book fairs, with their colorful displays and wide variety of titles, has helped inspire the imaginations of young readers for more than 40 years. Within those shiny, wheeled stacks that almost magically pop up inside schools throughout the year, students are free to discover books beyond what may be available in their school library. And for students who, for reasons geographic or personal, may lack access to a public library, the book fair provides another opportunity to deepen their love of reading.
To see the culture wars reach something as beloved — and seemingly innocuous — as the Scholastic Book Fair is disappointing but unsurprising considering how much far-right conservatives across the country have been targeting books in recent years. In 2021 and 2022, the number of objections brought against school books broke records, according to the American Library Association.
At the same time, state laws and school district policies restricting school libraries and librarians are proliferating. According to the Washington Post, “By the start of the last school year, at least a half-dozen states had enacted laws giving parents more power over which books appear in libraries or limiting students’ access to books, and, in recent years, at least seven states have adopted laws threatening librarians with imprisonment for providing ‘obscene’ or ‘harmful’ books to children.”
In a Post analysis of school book challenges filed nationwide in the 2021-22 school year, the majority of targeted books were by and about LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals.
Furthermore, the majority of those challenges — 60% — came from 11 people. That should serve as a reminder that these challenges are anything but grassroots and are hardly representative of the majority of Americans. Rather, they are a coordinated effort by a radical minority that wants to restrict access to topics and ideas that make them uncomfortable or conflict with their personal worldview.
These stunts are a distraction that keeps us from having more difficult conversations about the issues facing our young people, like mental health access, declining test scores, gun violence in schools and a host of behavioral issues manifesting in the classroom. Let’s be honest, book challenges and content restrictions are nothing but easy straw men for conservative politicians, who cynically use them to gin up people’s fears to compensate for a dearth of meaningful policy ideas.
In Vermont, fortunately, these sorts of challenges are rare. While some school board members and parents around the state got swept up in critical race theory hysteria and others are easily triggered by the words like diversity, equity and inclusion, our Legislature, governor and local school boards are not restricting what our kids can read and learn.
We understand that Scholastic — in its attempt to get books to kids and give cover to educators — is in a tough position, but they and other textbook and educational publishers need to fight censorship, not cow to it. School boards, educators and parents, too, need to reject these challenges when they arise, and push back against political pressure, threats and intimidation.
All American children deserve the right to read, learn and think freely. They — like all of us — should be allowed to encounter topics that may make them uncomfortable and encouraged to question the status quo. Such critical thinking is the bedrock of our democracy. Maybe the folks who are so intent on banning books would know that if they took the time to read one.
