A school district in Utah has decided to permanently ban 22 books from its libraries, KUER-FM reports.
The move comes four months after the Alpine School District, the largest in the state, removed 52 books from its shelves for review when a new Utah law set guidelines for “sensitive materials” to be challenged in public schools. The literary nonprofit PEN America noted that 42% of the removed books “feature LBGTQ+ characters and or themes.”
That’s the case for several of the 22 books that have been permanently banned. The list of removed books includes Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir Gender Queer, which the American Library Association listed as the No. 1 most banned book of 2021.
Other LGBTQ+ books on the ALA’s list that have been permanently banned by the Alpine School District include George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, Jonathan Evison’s Lawn Boy, and Juno Dawson’s This Book Is Gay.
The Utah list also includes all five books in Sarah J. Maas’ series of fantasy novels, Court of Thorns and Roses, as well as Ashley Hope Perez’s Out of Darkness, Lauren Myracle’s TTYL, and Jennifer Niven’s Breathless.
Paisley Rekdal, one of the leaders of Utah’s PEN America chapter, expressed her concern about the decision to ban the books.
“A democracy depends on an educated and literate population, a population that’s curious and able to think for itself and to read widely,” Rekdal told KUER. “And whenever we start limiting access to literature and ideas and information, we’re limiting our children’s ability to think complexly, to think for themselves.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
