Tag: Librarians

Public School Libraries in Texas and Monroe County, Tennessee

I was flabbergasted a couple of weeks ago to learn that a law had passed in Texas that will turn public school library book selection on its head.

Photo of opened books scattered on the floor
Photo by Vrînceanu Iulia on Unsplash

As of September 1, 2025, school boards in Texas will select all books for public school libraries instead of professional librarians. I’ll bet the Texas state legislators thought it would be easy-peazy, so let’s just let the local school board members do it.

Local school board members tend to be just regular people. Most of them do not have college degrees in library science. Dare I go out on a limb and say that none of them do? How many course hours have they studied library collection development?

Why is it that humans assume their job takes a high degree of training and skill, but no one else’s job carries any requirements?

Since I live with a retired public school librarian, I have a ton of questions.

Can all the local school board members in Texas read on a 12th grade level?

What do they know about reading levels?

What do they know about age appropriateness?

Do they know how time-consuming the book selection process is?

Do they know anything about book selection, such as where to even get a list of books available for school libraries?

Do they know how to balance book selection against a budget?

Do they know who the award-winning authors and illustrators are?

Do they know what books are already on the shelves in all the schools in their district so they can avoid duplication and maintain a balance of subject matter?

Do they know everything that is taught on every grade level so they can be sure to order books that will supplement or enhance what is being taught in every classroom?

Does a school board have to be unanimous and vote on each book?

I could list more questions. Those 10 are just the ones that came to me immediately when I read the news report.

What are they thinking in Monroe County, Tennessee?

I read on Sunday that in a report from PEN America that book banners are going after books about cats. No one seems to know why book banners have a vendetta against our little feline friends, but it is happening in Iowa, Florida, and in Monroe County, Tennessee.

Monroe County has banned almost 600 books from its public schools. The Complete Book of Cats and The New Encyclopedia of the Cat are just two of the cat-related titles being pulled from the school library shelves.

I don’t even know what to say about that. I love dogs. I don’t like cats very much (aside from being fascinated by the beauty of tigers), but I would never want books about cats to disappear from libraries.

But wait! On Monday, I learned that one of the books banned from schools in Monroe County is The Complete Book of Dogs, by Rosie Pilbeam! Now they have gone too far!

You can’t go around banning books about dogs! You just can’t! That’s un-American. Dogs are love universally. Every library in the world should have books about dogs – and even cats.

Why in the name of everything reasonable is Monroe County, Tennessee banning cat and dog “encyclopedias” from school libraries? What if that 8th grader or 12th grader aspires to be a veterinarian? Is that student not supposed to learn about animals until they get to college? How ridiculous!

In what universe does it make sense to ban books about cats and dog?

In what world does it make sense to ban ANY books?

Digging deeper into this on the internet, I found that this is the result of Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act, which went into effect this summer.

In addition to apparently any book about cats or dogs, the usual book banners’ target are on the list: To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Grapes of Wrath, Hidden Figures, Brave New World, Animal Farm; and Aztec, Inca, and Maya.

In my opinion the book above all others that should not be on anyone’s banned books list is Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterley. Heaven forbid a young black girl (or brown girl, or white girl) reads that book and is inspired to be a mathematician!

All kidding aside about dogs and cats, how dare they take Hidden Figures off the public school library shelves! How dare they!

There is such a thing as age appropriateness, but books should not be banned anywhere.

What are they afraid of?

Fortunately, Monroe County, Tennessee, only has a population of 46,250 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, so it’s book banning decisions won’t affect a huge number of children. But, since the Tennessee Age-Appropriate Materials Act applies to the entire state, will other county school systems follow Monroe County’s lead and ban the same 574 books?

North Carolina has some faults, but I’m so glad I don’t live in Texas or Monroe County, Tennessee! How embarrassing for the people there.

A bit of good news out of Washington, DC!

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced on Monday that the U.S. Department of Education decided to unfreeze the money it froze a week or two ago that was earmarked for after-school programs. This means North Carolina will get $36 million of the $165 million the Department of Education originally said it was freezing.

Jackson vowed he will see the U.S. Department of Education in court to try to recover the other $130 million.

Until my next blog post

Read anything and everything you can get your hands on.

Don’t let anyone tell you what you should not read.

Look for my blog post tomorrow about the 596 books the U.S Department of Defense has banned this month from the schools it operates for the children of our military personnel.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Who decides what you have access to at the library?

A few weeks ago I blogged about book banning. (See Book Banning is Democracy Banning! June 19, 2023.) I planned to blog about “How do you decide what to read next?” on July 14, but my computer had other ideas. I’m saving that post for August because I felt compelled to take a different approach today.

Book challenges and book banning

I didn’t plan to bash anyone in this post; however, I keep reading about more and more cases of book challenges and book banning across the United States and how various state legislatures (Arkansas, to name one) are passing laws that are putting our society on the slippery slope of censorship.

Fortunately, on Saturday, in response to a lawsuit filed by libraries, librarians, bookstore, and publishing companies,  a federal judge temporarily blocked portions of Act 372 in Arkansas, which would criminalize librarians who knowingly let a minor see objectionable sexual content.

Senate Bill 90 in North Carolina is tame by comparison to Arkansas’s Act 372, which had been scheduled to become law tomorrow. NC Senate Bill 90 is still under review and, if signed into law, will add new constraints on public libraries and public school libraries, and will add additional hoops through which librarians, school superintendents, and local school boards must jump. As if their jobs weren’t challenging enough!

Warren County, Virginia and the Houston Independent School District in Texas have been in the news recently, too, on this topic.

This terrifies me! This is the United States of America, and a vocal narrow-minded group of people are yanking local and state governing bodies around as if they have rings in their noses.

Book by book…

Book by book, library by library, school system by school system, the whittling away of our right to read is eating away the foundations on which our country was founded. If not for public education in the United States, how many of our citizens would know how to read?

Public education is under attack by many state legislatures, including the one here in North Carolina. Vouchers to give parents money to send their children to private school? Give me a break! Why would a state legislature give money for private education when one of its responsibilities is to fund and support public education?

The ignorant few will soon decide what we can read and cannot read. Politicians are usurping the roll of professional librarians in deciding which books can go on library shelves.

Pay attention! What’s happening in your state and in your county? The state legislature in North Carolina has a history of voting in the dead of the night. You just never know what you’re going to wake up to in the morning.

This leads me to the question I ask in the blog post title today: Who decides what you can and cannot read?

There’s a connection between today’s question and the current trend toward banning books in the United States.

Do you want politicians deciding what you can and cannot read? Do you want local politicians deciding what your child can or cannot read?

Since my last blog post

I didn’t intend to take a three-week break from blogging this month, but my computer had other ideas. I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just say, it was unsettling and frustrating being unable to log into my WordPress account for 18 days.

I hope you missed me. I missed y’all!

Until my next blog post

If you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter through my website, https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com, please do so before you miss any more newsletters. For subscribing, you’ll receive a free downloadable copy of “Slip Sliding Away: A Southern Historical Short Story,” so you can get a feel for my historical fiction writing.

I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it. Read! Read! Read! And please support your local public library!

Make time for friends and relatives, even if you don’t agree with them about politics.

Remember the brave people of Ukraine.

Janet