**NOTE: Numbers in slide 1 include both challenges AND bans! 📚** Book bans & challenges in schools are growing at a pace not seen in decades, and a lot of them are happening on the low 🤫 what are your thoughts on this? Comment below! I did some research on book bans and WOW, it’s getting really wild out here. Of the books banned the most during the 2021-2022 school year, topics range from race & racism (🤦🏾‍♀️), history books/biographies (???), rights & activism, gender, and sexuality. Over 41% of the books banned featured people of color as main/secondary characters. A diverse society should read diverse books, and we won’t raise a generation of empathetic humans by completely shielding them from the perspectives & histories of others, no matter how challenging they might be to receive. 🌎 Does that mean that books aren’t ever allowed to be challenged? No, you have that right- but through transparent, unbiased, ESTABLISHED procedures that have been designed to protect the integrity of the art and respect the librarians, teachers, families, and ALL community members. What do you think about all of this? 💭 SOURCES: 📕 Pen America Index of School Book Bans 📗 State of America’s Libraries Special Report: Pandemic Year Two by the American Library Association 📘 Washington Post- “More books are banned than ever before”