A chilling new documentary at the Sundance film festival examines the phenomenon of book banning in US schools, which flourished in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the ordinary heroes who fight them on the local level.
The Librarians, directed by Kim A Snyder and executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, follows several school librarians from Texas, Florida, Louisiana and New Jersey who were either fired, harassed or significantly challenged for their refusal to remove books from their shelves deemed “inappropriate” by conservative state legislatures, school board members or parents. Such banned books, usually branded “pornographic”, typically include African American history, LGBTQ+ friendly children’s books, any book addressing racism in America or classics, such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, deemed in violation of “Judeo-Christian principles”. One librarian in Texas described how she was forced to lock selected books behind closed doors. “Every book that was on that shelf was like telling a student ‘we want to put you behind locks,’” she says in the film.
