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It's Banned Books Week. Honorary youth chair Iris Mogul and Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, talk about what it is, why it matters so much, and how you can get involved.
LOTSA LIIIINKS!
BannedBooksWeek.org is your first port of call. Here are some things you can do, including hosting a Right To Read Night.
The American Library Association has a ton of information about banned and challenged books, including top tens of challenged authors per year, and a form for reporting censorship attempts.
PEN’s annual report about book bans was published last week.
The National Coalition Against Censorship’s Right To Read…
…and their handbook for educators.
Books Unbanned for digital library access to banned books.
Judy Blume on censorship, and what to do if it happens to you, and resources for challenging the challenges.
"Our research showed that this organized effort has consistently targeted representations of minorities in children’s and young adult books, both fiction and nonfiction...As we examined each book, clear patterns emerged…books seemed to be targeted for no discernible reason, beyond having narrators or protagonists who were children of color….All of these books’ covers depicted racial, gender or sexual diversity. This made us wonder whether book banishers were simply judging books based on their cover art, rather than the content of their stories."
“Book banning can often be a quiet action; a book removed from a shelf is not always noticed. That’s all the more reason why we need to be alert and make some noise.”
“Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.” New documentary The Librarians is available here, and also currently on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
An artist is beaming Trump’s banned words into the night sky.
Word Origins newsletter on the fairly short history of ‘deplatform’.
Forrest Spaulding’s original Library Bill of Rights.
99pi had an episode about how a book like Mein Kampf is kept in Germany: “Deep in the heart of the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the Giftschrank was a box (and later, a room) for storing books that were seen as potentially hazardous. Over the years, such “poison cabinets” or “poison rooms” in this and other German libraries would fill up, get emptied, fill up again—the contents of the Giftschrank speaking volumes about what German society considered dangerous at any given moment.”
“It is well-documented that Mein Kampf made [Hitler] a fortune – more than 12m reichsmark – not least, Kellerhoff has discovered, because he avoided paying much of the tax due on it. A year after coming to power in 1934, he received a demand for 405,494.40 RM, based largely on book earnings. But he never paid and the following year was struck from the tax records altogether.”
While many US museums are closed during government shutdown, Planet Word in DC is open and free to go to.
Thanks to Rosalie in the Allusioverse Discord for these links about Australia’s harsh history of censorship, and books that had been banned there.
Otherlusionists: Cake Is Mightier than the Sword, about Argentinian bakers renaming pastries as protest, and Lacuna, about newspaper recipes signalling censorship in Brazil.
More pods for you? I’m on the new episode of the Bugle (Trump-free edition), and recently on Random Pursuit playing many versions of Trivial Pursuit, and talking about whatever the hell my creative process is in Making Trouble with Molly Naylor.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
quintain, noun, historical:
a post set up as a mark in tilting with a lance,
typically with a pivoted sandbag attached to strike an inexpert tilter.
Origin Middle English, from Old French quintaine,
perhaps based on Latin quintana, a street in a Roman camp separating the fifth and sixth maniples,
where military exercises were performed (from quintus 'fifth').
CREDITS:
Sam Helmick is the current president of the American Library Association, and they are the former president of the Iowa Library Association.
Iris Mogul is a student, and an Honorary Chair of this year’s Banned Books Week. She founded a Banned Books Club in Florida.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back in two weeks with a new episode - HZ.
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