The number of books targeted for censorship in the United States increased by 65% last year, according to the American Library Association. It’s the largest yearly jump in the nearly two decades the association’s tracked the number.
Alaska hasn’t been immune to nationwide trends.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, for instance, will go on trial next year for its removal of 56 books from library shelves without prior review. The school district was ordered to put the books back in August. In 2021, the Kenai City Council temporarily postponed the acceptance of a grant to pay for health-related books at the city’s library after some community members were concerned about what books would be bought.
Since 1982, libraries around the country have promoted Banned Books Week the last week of September as a way of educating communities about the importance of free access to information.
“Intellectual freedom is one of the core tenants of librarianship," said Rachel Nash, the City of Soldotna’s librarian. She says access to free information is a mainstay and right in a democracy.
"It’s why American public libraries are so unique," she said. "The fact that anybody can come in, it doesn’t matter who you are, or how old you are, what you do for a living, you can come in and you can access that information for free.”
Soldotna has embraced banned books by promoting a handful of them on a display near the library’s entrance. Banned Books Week only lasts for, well, a week. But, Soldotna’s display is up year-round. The titles rotate as books are checked out.
Another way Soldotna promotes challenged material is through its monthly Banned Book Club, where community members read and discuss banned or challenged books, from fiction to children’s books. This month, they’re reading “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.
“There’s children committing acts of violence, that one’s a pretty easy one, to see why somebody might not want somebody reading it," Nash said about the book. "There are also political themes, but we’ve got all kinds of titles you wouldn’t expect.”
Close to 50% of the titles challenged in the U.S. represent voices of LGBTQ+ people or people of color. Over 80 book titles were challenged in Alaska last year, including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner.”
Nash says recognizing and promoting banned and challenged books is important to increasing free access to information, regardless of whether or not you agree with that information.
“The fact that we are allowed to read up on the issues, and we’re allowed to have different opinions from our neighbors, and we’re allowed to talk about those different opinions, even if we disagree with somebody. That’s really big, because not everyone in the world has that right,” Nash said.
Soldotna’s Banned Book Club meets the fourth Thursday of every month. To see a list of the most challenged books in the United States or to learn more about Banned Books Week, visit the American Library Association's website.