New survey data from the Index of Censorship has found more than two dozen school librarians in the UK have been asked to remove books – including This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love and ABC Pride by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps – from school library shelves with 50% of the requests to remove books coming from parents.
Alison Tarrant, chief executive of the School Library Association (SLA), which helped administer the survey along with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, said that there appears to be something of a “trend” of censorship targeted at books written by queer authors or featuring queer characters.
These UK bans may be influenced by book censorship in the US, which reached record highs last year. “We’ve seen a couple of cases where things have been stirred up or initiated by groups or people in America – it’s no one actually in the school community itself,” said Tarrant.
There is an “intense” pressure for librarians to “get it right” when it comes to dealing with books that have been flagged, because there are often conflicting opinions from different parties about what should be done, and censorship issues “can turn into a very big discussion quite quickly”, said Tarrant. This has an “emotional impact” on librarians and can be “very isolating”.
Tarrant added: “If a pupil is wanting to know more about sex or sexuality, I would much rather they went to their school library and explored the resources there than they went to the internet and explored what’s there, because that isn’t written with children in mind, and it’s not written with an educational purpose.”:
LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall has waded in on the debate with a spokesperson saying: “It is troubling to see reports that LGBTQ+ books are being removed from school libraries as we know that many students find great importance and reassurance in seeing themselves reflected in books and media.
“Preventing LGBTQ+ young people from seeing themselves represented in inclusive resources and books at school can often make them feel ashamed and feel the need to hide who they are.”
