March 11, 2023

TINY TRUMP UNPLUGGED:

Ron DeSantis's book ban mania targets Jodi Picoult -- and she hits back (Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, March 10, 2023, Washington Post)

There's a big problem with DeSantis's claims: The people deciding which books to remove from classrooms and school libraries didn't get the memo. In many cases, the notion that banned books meet the highly objectionable criteria he detailed is an enormous stretch.

This week, Florida's Martin County released a list of dozens of books targeted for removal from school libraries, as officials struggle to interpret a bill DeSantis signed in the name of "transparency" in school materials. The episode suggests his decrees are increasingly encouraging local officials to adopt censoring decisions with disturbingly vague rationales and absurdly sweeping scope.

Numerous titles by well-known authors such as Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and James Patterson have been pulled from library shelves. The removal list includes Picoult's novel "The Storyteller" about the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who meets an elderly former SS officer. It contains some violent scenes told in flashbacks from World War II and an assisted suicide.

There's a reason people don't want their children to learn about things like Jim Crow and the Holocaust...

Posted by at March 11, 2023 12:00 AM

  

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