True, people can find what they want in anything. This is a great book.
I totally understand the importance of wartime rallying. Geisel did some great cartooning.
But some of it is cringy.
Posted on 01/21/2023 5:58:50 PM PST by DoodleBob
As books are banned and challenged across the country, they might have a much larger impact than the removal of a few titles: They may be changing the makeup of entire school libraries, due to the chilling effect they create.
That’s according to new research that in 2022 analyzed hundreds of titles from more than 6,600 public school libraries across the country.
The contents of school libraries are not often public even as a record number of books continue to be challenged across the country. But the availability of books about topics considered controversial, such as race and racism, LGBTQ issues, and abortion in a school library varies widely depending on the community. Conservative areas are already less likely to have these books available for students. But with the recent increase in book banning, districts where books are challenged are staying away from acquiring newly published books that deal with controversial topics, particularly books about LGBTQ characters and issues.
This should be concerning for librarians and advocates focused on students’ access to diverse books and ideas, said Kirsten Slungaard Mumma, a postdoctoral fellow at the Wheelock Educational Policy Center at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Slungaard Mumma assembled data on the availability of hundreds of titles to examine patterns in the types and amount of books schools have and are buying by scraping libraries’ databases.
The study establishes what school libraries already had in stock before the recent push to challenge hundreds of books gained momentum in districts across the country, how that varied with the demographics of the community, and what the changes indicate about the impact of book bans on school libraries in general.
The chilling effect of book bans
Schools in districts that were subject to a book challenge in the 2021-22 school year were 55 percent less likely to have acquired one of the 65 books about LGBTQ characters published between June and August 2022, according to the study.
“These challenges have had what we call a chilling effect, reducing the probability that school libraries are buying materials that deal with LGBTQ content or characters,” Slungaard Mumma said.
“If it’s true that book challenges are affecting the types of books that school libraries are considering for their collections,” she continued, “that could have much bigger effects than whether a specific title was pulled from the library shelf.”
The number of challenged titles also matters, she found. Each new book challenged in a district reduced the probability that the district would buy a new book about LGBTQ characters by 4 percent.
Book challenges often did not take place in the most conservative areas, but happened more often in those that just leaned Republican, Slungaard Mumma’s analysis found. Books were also challenged more frequently in states that had laws restricting lessons on race or LGBTQ lessons, and in areas with conservative groups.
Conservative areas are defined in the study as counties which voted for President Donald Trump in the 2020 elections, and liberal areas were defined as those that voted for President Joe Biden.
“In really conservative areas, there’s probably a lot of consensus between families and the school about what kind of material is or isn’t appropriate. And so maybe those books aren’t as readily available, and they’re not attracting attention,” she said. “But in places that are conservative, but not as conservative, maybe you’re encountering more of those blocks. And maybe there’s more impetus for local political groups or parents or administrators to take these kinds of actions.”
Libraries in conservative areas have fewer books and, less diverse ones.
School libraries in those areas generally have fewer books overall, and lower acquisition rates than libraries in liberal areas, which might also explain differences in access to books with controversial content. Libraries in conservative areas also have fewer books on LGBTQ issues, race and racism, or abortion, and more Christian fiction titles and books by Dr. Seuss that are no longer published because of racist imagery.
“Local school boards and schools have a lot of authority to decide what types of content or stories or ideas that students encounter,” Slungaard Mumma said.
“Demonstrating that these patterns exist is something that we haven’t really been able to do in systematic ways before,” she added. “I think it was interesting, if not totally surprising to find that these patterns existed.”
Compared to a swing county, a solidly conservative one in one comparison was linked to a 20 percent lower probability that a high school has a title related to race and racism, and a 12.9 percent lower probability of havinga popular LGBTQ title, Slungaard Mumma found. State legislation, particularly the “divisive concepts” laws that were passed in 17 states as a pushback to “critical race theory,” also have an impact on the kinds of books school libraries have. Libraries in the 17 states that have passed such laws are 46 percent less likely to have books related to the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which centers the experiences and contributions of Black Americans throughout U.S. history. Some states also explicitly ban the 1619 Project or any related instructional materials.
However, divisive concepts laws are not associated with the number of titles on race or racism in a school library overall, which Slungaard Mumma said was surprising. Even in the most conservative counties, 96 percent of high schools had at least one title on race/racism, 95 percent had at least one title about abortion, and 94 percent had at least title about LGBTQ characters.
The publishing companies banned some of Dr. Seuss’s books because the images were too racial. Wow! Talk about a double standard.
Yep! The smell of hypocrisy is overwhelming.
They say that like its a bad thing.
In a normal world, it would say "... a chilling effect, reducing the probability possibility that school libraries are buying materials that deal with LGBTQ content..."
Book bans? I bet you can walk into any book store and buy the same books.
A: No. It’s merely not being prioritized.
The same rag from which this story emanates had a story about 'what to do' with the evil Dr Seuss collection. To wit:
“Our position at NCTE, and mine personally, is the language of affirmation—to affirm marginalized students and authors and literature, and to affirm cultures and differences in students. I applaud [Dr. Seuss Enterprises] for presenting the statement and for stopping the publishing of those books, because they’re hurtful,” he said.
Librarians have several options in situations like this, Caldwell-Stone said: They can keep the book in circulation, they could move it to a research collection, or they could weed it out altogether. “Often, the decision is to keep the book in the collection, but it may not be surfaced in storytimes or displays,” she said. How libraries approach the Dr. Seuss books is going to differ, she said, based on individual guidelines for collection curation and community demand for certain books.
Still, said Caldwell-Stone: “This is a moment that offers an opportunity for adults to think critically about Seuss’ books, and to decide whether to share these books with the children in their lives.”
I NEVER saw racism in Dr Seuss...all I saw was a push for "ecology" (as environmentalism was called in the 70s) in The Lorax. (Theodore Geisel's WWII comic drawings of the Japanese, however, were pretty harsh by contemporary standards.) Indeed, The Sneeches is a powerful anti-racist (and, subversively, foments hate for bureaucrats and the slime that make a living fanning those flames) book.
Furthermore, just as an obstacle course trains you for real-life physical challenges, seeing books that are "off" preps you for discerning the real McCoy. Even in the 70s we kids could spot a stereotype from a mile away - we saw it in Buckwheat in The Little Rascles. We also understood that things were different in the 30s, and that each generation handles things their own way.
The research paper on which this story is based had some interesting additional findings. Schools in districts that went for Trump had relatively more Christian fiction. Fair enough. But...which branch of Christianity? On the Religion board at FR, there are spirited arguments about Catholicism, Calvinism, etc....would there be a massive food fight in a conservative town if a school introduced a pro-Catholicism teen book?
I believe there needs to be a separation of school and state. Public schools are a bigly part of the Comminist Manifesto. I'd privatize the school AND the library if I had my way.
That said, why does a school need a library if the Town has a public library? There is only so much money to go around. I bet thousands in savings can be had by consolidating the library operations.
The left would haaaaate that option. And maybe even some on the right.
Upon deeper inspection, notice that the leftist litmus test for book prioritization isn't necessarily racism or gender confusion. It is an inherent disdain for unbridled individual thought. Any kid confused about their sexuality will search the web before going to the library. Any kid who wants to read Dr Seuss or Christian fiction can also find it on the web. But if you put/de-prioritize these books in the library, you can force the contours of individual thought. THAT is the basis of this debate.
Ping to my reply above...I should have included you.
Thanks for the ping. Dr. Suess is racist in the way that everything can be racist. If one looks long and hard enough, things can be found to twist around. It is what the Leftists do.
I was never a huge fan of Dr. Seuss as a little kid, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize it as something that would appeal to a little kid’s brain.
Also, I find it hard to disagree with your comments about schools and libraries.
True, people can find what they want in anything. This is a great book.
I totally understand the importance of wartime rallying. Geisel did some great cartooning.
But some of it is cringy.
I went to the Dr. Seuss museum in Springfield, MA. It was fun.
I am just sick and damned tired of this business of assigning our values and mores of today to people who lived decades or even centuries ago.
It is maddening to me.
For the record, I'd NEVER ban Dr Seuss' cartoons, even the cringy ones.
The way I see it, it is part of our history, for better or for worse. People like you and I don’t have any problem staring it in the face and saying “Yeah. That is how it was. We learned from it. It isn’t who we are now.”
Leftists cannot do that.
Perhaps, my FRiend, it's because it IS how THEY are NOW.
Progressives" virtue-signal anti-racism, but they consider blacks and anyone who isn't like them to be inferiors.
The far left progressives are actually lily white. Nearly seven-in-ten Progressive Left (68%) are White adults, making this group less racially and ethnically diverse than the other Democratic-oriented groups.
Yet, these Dems hold not only extremist views on race, but views more extreme than those held by more racially-diverse Dem groups.
They live in enclaves in cities, prefer going to museums over going to the range, and think religion is sophistry. Their policies and language all reek of a Superiority Complex.
I get Affinity bias. We all have it. I'd probably be rejected by an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune and the feeling would be mutual.
But Erika Donalds' experience is worth remembering when leftist want to ban books and say WE are all haters.
I can tell you, when behind closed doors, and if "progressives" think you're "one of them," their mask slips and (using affluent code language) you see how they REALLY feel about the races.
Scratch a progressive, find a Klansman and a book burner, in a suit and tie or lab coat
There are lots of books that are great literature and offer enough for serious discussions. I see no purpose other than indoctrination for books like Gender Queer.
"...I can tell you, when behind closed doors, and if "progressives" think you're "one of them," their mask slips and (using affluent code language) you see how they REALLY feel about the races. Scratch a progressive, find a Klansman and a book burner, in a suit and tie or lab coat..."
Spot on. That is why they hate and fear someone like James O'Keefe, who gets behind those closed doors where they take their masks off, and records in their own words what they really think and how they brag about their despicable actions.
Regarding Libraries being able to *not* carry books of their choosing . . .
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — Filed May 23, 2025
Here is an amusing except from the Court’s Opinion:
“We note with amusement (and some dismay) the unusually over-caffeinated arguments made in this case. Judging from the rhetoric in the briefs, one would think Llano County had planned to stage a book burning in front of the library. Plaintiffs and amici warn of ‘book bans,” “pyres of burned books,” “totalitarian regimes,’ and the ‘Index librorum prohibitorum.’ One amicus intones: ‘Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.’ Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books. If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend.
All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections. That is what it means to be a library—to make judgments about which books are worth reading and which are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not.
If you doubt that, next time you visit the library ask the librarian to direct you to the Holocaust Denial Section.”
https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/LittlevLLanoCountyEnBancOpinion.pdf
“These challenges have had what we call a chilling effect, reducing the probability that school libraries are buying materials that deal with LGBTQ content or characters,” Slungaard Mumma said.”
Ye, that’s the whole point, Slungaard.
WTF kind of name is that anyway?
L
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