How Iowa’s Book Banning Manifests

Tim Weber writing about a database he and Samantha Hernandez built for the Des Moines Register:

Together, more than 450 individual works by more than 300 authors have already been pulled from the shelves of Iowa school districts as a result of Senate File 496. Our database will continue to be updated as we receive more lists from districts around the state.

I skimmed the list of titles from the Iowa City Community School District and found a number of familiar titles, including ones that were favorites of my own kid, classics including Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Joyce’s Ulysses and a favorite of my own, Y the Last Man.

It makes book banning so much more personal. These are abstract titles of “banned books.” These are favorites being pulled from the shelves at your kid’s school.

Totally unrelated1: there’s a City & School election on Nov. 7 and there’s some scary folks running . I’m voting for Molly Abraham, Charlie Eastham, Mitchell Lingo and Lisa Williams and you should, too.

  1. It’s completely related. ↩︎