Stunned librarians, parents and booksellers are speaking out against the censorship of a book banned in a local school district this month.
"I was shocked that it had gone that far," said Zebrina Looney, whose son is a senior in the Wentzville School District. She talked to a local chapter of the NAACP about the district's school board, which this month officially removed "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison from its high school libraries.
Looney's husband, Donald, had already registered to run for the Wentzville School Board. The Black family has witnessed several years of a disturbing "aversion to anything to do with diversity and inclusion" by some board members, he said.
Meanwhile, area booksellers reported increased orders for "The Bluest Eye," a 51-year-old title by one of just three U.S. women to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And the ACLU said the removal violated First Amendment rights. The organization is gathering information about the ban, exploring legal remedies.
The Wentzville decision is a rare one in contemporary St. Louis. But as censorship attempts grow throughout the country, librarians and others say such efforts reflect anxiety about cultural change in local communities.
In addition to banning Morrison's book, which is about a Depression-era Black girl who is called ugly and wishes she had the blue eyes of white people, the Wentzville district has removed three other books: "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson, "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel and "Heavy" by Kiese Laymon. The first two include themes of sexual identity and the last of sexual abuse. A spokeswoman for the district said last week that they were removed as a regular part of a librarian's "weeding" out of texts.
Book reviews
Public and school libraries usually have a review or reconsideration process through which a parent or customer fills out a form citing what they find objectionable. The book is read in its entirety by professional librarians (in public libraries) or teachers, librarians, laypeople and perhaps students (in schools). A report is written recommending whether the book should be retained, removed or reclassified for age or restricted (in schools).
Last November, the St. Charles City-County Library had an unusual spate of six book challenges, said director Jason Kuhl. Usually it receives no more than that in a single year.
After review, no book was removed or reclassified.
"It's our job to have these materials and have them available to the public," Kuhl said. "It's up to the individual to determine whether they want to read them or let their minor child read them."
Librarians talk about the work as a whole, Kuhl said: "An individual passage isn't going to get something removed from shelves."
Professional library associations, from the American Library Association to the Missouri Library Association and Missouri Association of School Librarians, have a long-held, unified position: Parents may choose not to let their child read a book, but they should not control other parents' decisions on family reading.
On Friday, the Missouri Library Association emailed a letter critical of the ban to the president of the Wentzville School Board. It said, in part: "We encourage you to reexamine the depth of your commitment to education in the truest sense, and to find your courage in the face of baseless political grandstanding at the expense of educators and students in your district."
It directed the board to its online statement on intellectual freedom and asked that the book be returned to school shelves.
Education Week says that school districts in at least 30 states are involved in book debates, often influenced by conservative groups. In Texas, librarians with T-shirts labeled #FReadom Fighters "are part of a larger movement of teachers, students, authors and parents who are resisting efforts in Texas and elsewhere to purge certain books from schools," the publication reported this month.
Regarding "The Bluest Eye," a Wentzville parent complained because the novel describes a rape of the main character by her father. At least one school board member called it obscene.
Through the years, librarians have held that only a judge can determine obscenity, and most don't believe "The Bluest Eye" would meet such a standard.
Instead, the realistic but fictional story is considered a powerful part of the American literary canon and a title that reflects some readers' lives. Others read it with empathy for the girl's life, feelings and trauma. In general, like some other adult books, it would only be recommended for a mature high school student.
Zebrina Looney said it's offensive to compare rape to pornography, explaining that kind of thinking deters assault victims from speaking up.
Another parent, Jess Townes, pointed out that "there is an amount of healing from trauma that can come from reading."
Townes, an author and the parent of two boys in Wentzville schools, said, "I think there are forces out there that would like us to be less empathetic," referring to some board members who have fought against efforts toward diversity.
"I don't think this is a good look for the district."
Some parents' concerns have "nothing to do with racism or bigotry," parent Katie Rash said.
Rash, whose daughter is in second grade in the Francis Howell School District, said her complaint against a book, "L8R, G8R" by Lauren Myracle, resulted in its removal from a middle school because she was told it should be targeted for grades 10 and up.
She said: "There are religious reasons that I don't want my children exposed to sexual content."
She believes sexual references even in fiction go against Missouri guidelines on preferring "abstinence" in sex education classes. She believes in abstinence until marriage and wants that for her children.
She wants her district's libraries to flag all books with sexual content.
"It's a never-ending job to stay on top of what's in the library," she said.
The Wentzville committee that reviewed "The Bluest Eye" overwhelmingly recommended retaining the book. Supportive statements in its report included that "the referenced paragraphs are but a few of the passages of this book that allows us to see into this world and are not written for sexual gratification."
The school board's 4-3 vote to overrule the recommendation and ban the book "disrespects the training of library staff and disrespects our committee members," Townes said.
A week after the vote, Wentzville's award-winning superintendent announced he'd accepted a job in the Rockwood School District.
Bookstore orders
Jeffrey Blair, who with his wife owns EyeSeeMe African American Children's Bookstore in University City, said one of his daughters especially liked "The Bluest Eye" when she was a student at Kirkwood High School. He finds it absurd that to think that mature students would not be able to handle reading the novel.
"There are a lot of books on the 'classical list' that have discussed traumatic events," he said, noting that the Bible includes rape.
Students know a lot more than the few controversial pages described in these challenged books, Blair said.
"The things young adults deal with now is beyond what I was dealing with," he said. "I don't think we have to coddle them; I think they can handle difficult and complex issues."
He said the Wentzville ban was "shocking. It's censorship as I see it." Like others, he said that most challenges are to books about Black and LGBTQ people.
One of the reasons he and his wife, Pamela, started their bookstore was to expand the types of books children are exposed to: "Now it seems to be going in the opposite direction."
The Guardian newspaper last week published a story saying U.S. conservatives were backed by wealthy donors to wage campaigns "often focused on works that address race, LGBTQ issues or marginalized communities."
Right after the Wentzville ban, Blair's store received about 10 orders for "The Bluest Eye."
Also, an organization called In Purpose Educational Services asked him to help develop a banned book donation program. The local group's founder, Heather Fleming, launched the effort to give banned books to Missouri parents and students who qualify. She started with "The Bluest Eye" for February.
Another bookstore owner, Emily Hall Schroen of Main Street Books in St. Charles, has also reported new orders for the novel:
"The surest way to get people to request a book is to ban it."
Local anxiety
The desire for community control, anxiety about the future and belief that books are influential are underlying issues for challenges, said Emily J.M. Knox, author of "Book Banning in 21st-Century America."
Knox is an associate professor for the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Six years after her own book came out, though, there have been many more children's book challenges.
"So many things are up in the air: the upheaval of the 2020 election, the pandemic, the George Floyd murder," Knox said.
She said: "We don't agree on citizenship at this moment in the U.S. What does it mean to be a good citizen? What do you need to know?"
She said it's often important to people that community members share values. They think the way to "ensure that the next generation will imbue these values is through the public schools."
As for concern about sexual content, Knox contrasts some controversial books with Christian novels, which aim to edify the soul: "There is no sex."
Her work on contemporary book banning refers to centuries-old Christian debates about whether a person could find salvation just by reading the Bible. "That idea is strongly held in Western society: Reading can not only affect you, it can save your soul."
Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" is not about edifying the soul, she said. Morrison's novels, which often include violence, are about "the trauma and legacy of white supremacy in the United States."
In a world full of videos and social media, Knox said, people still believe books remain powerful, even scary: "They might change your mind about something."
