--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe.
--:-- John Bickley: And I'm John Bickley. Today, we're taking a closer look at the battle over so-called banned books.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. Over the last few years, the controversy has intensified. Some parents have been alarmed about the content found in books given to their children at school, while some educators and lawmakers are rallying around those books, arguing that they celebrate LGBT themes.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right, Georgia. We're joined today by Daily Wire investigative reporter, Mairead Elordi, to discuss all the controversy surrounding banned books.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, Mairead, there's a long history of parents expressing disapproval about books assigned to kids at school. A pretty famous example is Catcher in the Rye. In that case, parents weren't keen on the profanity and the references to drinking and suicide, and it was seen by some people as kind of anti-family. Is this just history repeating itself?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Well, a lot of people on the left today are saying the current book battle is more of the same. They point to books like Catcher in the Rye and say that books that address the gritty realities of life are engaging for young learners and inspire a love of reading. They're digging their heels into, as they frame it, protect kids' access to these books.
--:-- John Bickley: But a lot of parents say these new books are a far cry from Catcher in the Rye and have no place in K-12 schools. They also point out that keeping a book out of an elementary or middle school library is not banning a book at all. And obviously, the vast majority of books are not in school libraries, so decisions are constantly being made about which are included and which are excluded.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: That's right. And now let's get to the actual books. And again, note to parents, there is some graphic content ahead. What are some of the specific books that are causing the most controversy these days?
--:-- Georgia Howe: The American Library Association generates a list of the most challenged books each year, which basically means the books that most frequently inspire parent backlash and attempted removals.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: In 2022, the graphic novel Gender Queer by Maya Kobabe topped the list. I should note six of the top 10 challenged books were challenged over LGBT content. And all top 10 were challenged for sexual content.
--:-- John Bickley: The reason parents object to Gender Queer is not specifically that it's LGBT, but rather that it includes graphic depictions of sex between two males with a sex toy, as well as oral sex, masturbation, and other sexually explicit content.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Parents say this is pornographic and promotes misleading ideas about sex and gender, and that it doesn't serve an educational purpose due to its simplistic prose and vocabulary.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They say the book should be replaced with a more edifying option that has more challenging vocabulary. In terms of the rigor, it's been designated as 7th grade or above, but that rating is largely due to the sexual content.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: It's typically been used in high school classrooms, and parents say that's another problem. They want their kids to read more challenging books while in high school.
--:-- John Bickley: So what is the actual literary content for Gender Queer? What's the book about?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: So it's a memoir of a gender nonconforming author exploring her sexuality. The jacket describes Gender Queer as a useful and touching guide on gender identity.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's a sample. This is a female character speaking. Again, parental warning here, quoting, For years, my standard method of masturbation was stuffing a sock into the front of my pants and manipulating the bulge. This would evolve into hip thrusting while thinking of my latest gay ship.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Memorably, I got off once while driving just by rubbing the front of my jeans and imagining getting a blowjob, end quote.
--:-- John Bickley: This is hardly the most graphic part of this book, but it gives a sense of some of the gender discussion. Just a reminder, this is a female character exploring a male identity.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: The next scene in the book is a conversation between this character and her sister, who both taste their, quote, vagina slime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another character in Genderqueer becomes a non-binary pagan priest. One passage in Genderqueer describes the main character sexting at work.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Here's that passage. Again, parents say this isn't what they want their kids spending time reading while at school.
--:-- John Bickley: But some educators are pushing back, saying it's transphobia and anti-LGBT sentiment that's driving the criticism, and that kids need to be exposed to diverse sexualities in order to be tolerant and inclusive.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Okay, so Genderqueer is the most challenged book. What else is on the list?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Some of the other top books parents have worked to pull from schools are titled Lawn Boy, My Friend Dahmer, Out of Darkness, In the Dream House, The Hate U Give, Flamer, Looking for Alaska, Hopeless, The Handmaid's Tale, a picture book called Dim Sum for Everyone, and the New York Times 1619 Project.
--:-- John Bickley: Of the top 10, most of the complaints from parents are about vivid descriptions of sex acts, but in the case of the 1619 Project, for example, parents object to overt political messaging.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Here's one mom talking to the Cherokee County School Board in Georgia in March of last year. She was shut down by the board when she read passages from a book called Homegoing that was available to high schoolers in the district.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here an excerpt and I going to really try to be careful so I don get kicked out Excited now he pushed into her As she squeezed her eyes and tightly as she could her tongue circled her lips. He pushed harder, his breath heavy and labored. She scratched his back and he cried out. She bit his ear and pulled his hair.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: There's a lot more to it. It's 50 shades of gray and CCSD. Excuse me. Yes. We have children at home. I know, and it's really not a problem. Don't you find the irony in that? You're exactly saying exactly what I'm telling you.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Ironically, she was asked to stop reading because there are children present, which she says is precisely the point.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Here's another Texas mom reading from The Perks of Being a Wallflower to the Frisco Independent School District in Texas in November. She, too, was scolded by a school board member that there was a child present.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He reached to take off her pants, but she started crying really hard. So he reached for his own. He pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees. Please, Dave, no. But the boy just talked soft to her about how good she looked, and she grabbed his penis with her hands and started moving it.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: The boy pushed the girl's head down, and she started to kiss his penis. She was still crying. Finally, she stopped crying because he put his penis in her mouth, and I don't think you can cry in that position.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I ask you why this book survived two attempts. Thank you so much. And there's a child in our boardroom, so I'd like for you to please stop reading that.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: The Frisco School District eventually voted to remove certain books from the school library.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I also want to note, parents aren't the only ones who've raised concerns. Some students have also spoken up about feeling uncomfortable with the level of sexuality in the material they're being assigned.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Here's an 11-year-old reading a passage from the book Nick and Charlie at a school board meeting in Maine a couple months ago.
--:-- Georgia Howe: My back over my hips as I ask if we should take our clothes off. And he's saying yes before I finish my sentence. He's pulling off my t-shirt, laughing when I can't undo his shirt buttons. He's undoing my belt. I'm reaching into his bedside drawer for a condom.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: We're kissing again. We're rolling over. Obviously, you can see where this is going.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, this book was at my middle school and it was on a stand. When I rented it out to show my dad it. The librarian asked if I wanted more and if I wanted a graphic novel version.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: By the way, the U.S. is not the only country where this culture war is happening. Canada has a children's book called My Sister Wants a Penis about a small girl who likes to play with her brother's penis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The author actually won a taxpayer-funded award of $2,000 from the Montreal Arts Council for the book, which was a point of contention for many citizens.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: So the phrase book banning is pretty fraught. No one wants to be accused of banning books.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What do these parents actually want to happen with these books? Do they want them to be removed from the curriculum barred from schools barred from publication?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: In most cases the parents want the books removed from the K libraries and curricula. I'm not aware of any major efforts to have the books discontinued by publishers or removed from bookstores.
--:-- John Bickley: Educators, though, say removal from the library is tantamount to a ban. But parents counter that school libraries have limited space and there's only so much time in the school year. So time and space are better spent on books that shape their kid's character in a positive way.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: That really gets at the central conflict here because educators, too, believe these books are important for shaping kids' character. So it really comes down to a battle between who has the right to shape a child's character, the parent or the teacher.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So that brings us to parental rights legislation. Legally speaking, who has the right to decide what kids are reading at school?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Well, it's a balance. Parents vote for school board members in local elections, and those school board members ultimately make policy. But educational organizations also have a lot of sway.
--:-- John Bickley: And many of the leading literary organizations like Pan America, the American Library Association, are backing up the teachers and books like Genderqueer.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: But in recent years, there's been a push towards legally restricting certain types of books in schools in some states, including Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One Florida district, Martin County, has removed dozens of books from its middle schools and high schools. According to one estimate from Penn America, Florida ranks first for the number of book removals while Texas is in second place.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Some critics in Florida say schools were having mass bannings, which led some teachers and librarians to complain that the policies restricting books are vague.
--:-- John Bickley: Kathleen Daniels, the president of the Florida Association for Media and Education, said they have a whole new level of fear.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: However, conservatives and parents and even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have repeatedly stressed that they only want to restrict books that are clearly inappropriate or those which push a political narrative.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The American Library Association counted more than 1,200 book challenges in 2022, almost twice the number of challenges in 2021.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: We should note, not all of these challenges came from conservatives, although most of them did. Progressives want books like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn removed her racist language. To Kill a Mockingbird has also been challenged by progressives over its portrayal of race.
--:-- John Bickley: Some publishers are even rewriting classics to make them more politically correct.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Again, at the heart of it is really a battle over which values we are imparting to the next generation and who has the right to make that decision.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right, this issue is really emblematic of the moment we're in. Mairead, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Mairead Elordi. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- [Theme music fades in]
