Jodi Picoult discussed book bans with Ali Velshi on the MSNBC host’s Banned Book Club segment.
Picoult has been an outspoken critic of book censorship over the years. Her novel Nineteen Minutes, about the aftermath of a New Hampshire school shooting, was the most banned book in U.S. schools during the 2023-2024 school year, according to the literary nonprofit PEN America. And in 2023, a school district in Florida banned 20 of her novels from classrooms and libraries.
Velshi asked Picoult why so many of her books have been banned or challenged.
“Theoretically, if you ask the book banners, apparently I’m writing porn,” Picoult said. “Here’s a spoiler alert: I’m not writing porn. In fact, many of the people who are banning my books have not read my books, and fully accept that and say so when they ban them. You don’t have to read a book to ban it in America anymore.”
Velshi noted that the reason Nineteen Minutes is frequently banned is not because it is about a school shooting, but because it contains a reference to date rape.
“There’s a single page, page 313, and the word ‘erection’ is on it, and it is a date rape,” Picoult said. “It is absolutely endemic to the anti-bullying theme in the book. It’s not gratuitous, not salacious. But this is kind of what book banners have moved into. They started with LGBTQ books and authors and BIPOC books and authors, and now they’re starting to look at what they call ‘mature content.’ And that’s anything that they find objectionable. The reason this is dangerous for most of the people watching your show is because they’re not just stopping at the school library level.…They’re coming for the books that you read.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
