That Librarian — The Fight Against Book-Banning in America
Amanda Jones, Bloomsbury, £18

THE first amendment to the constitution of the United States purports to protect freedom of expression, namely freedom of speech, religion and the press. 

However, this freedom was flouted from the start and by the 1850s the Southern states were censoring anti-slavery material, including Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was given a public burning.

It became illegal throughout the US to possess or distribute “obscene or immoral” texts due to a law designed to ban the dissemination of material relating to sexuality, birth control and anatomy; a law in force well into the 20th century.

During McCarthyism, apart from obvious targets like the Communist Manifesto, any book failing to depict required social standards was deemed to have dangerous levels of anti-authoritarianism including even Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye.

In 1982 librarians launched an annual Banned Book Week in response to the sustained attacks on people’s rights, pulling together everyone involved in the writing, production and reading of books. It is still flourishing today. 

Over 80 per cent of US citizens, black, white, young or old, parents or not, disagree with book censorship; a healthy percentage, yet over 10,000 books were banned in US schools and colleges in 2023-24, two-thirds more than the previous year. Seemingly, young people need protection from anything that doesn't conform to a white, straight, middle-class, Christian US. 

Justification for book-banning can be summed up by the reaction to To Kill a Mockingbird from groups such as Moms for Liberty. Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize and remaining a US classic, the book has been attacked because it uses strong language and deals with class, racial injustice, rape and gender.

Enter Amanda Jones, award-winning Louisiana school librarian living and working in the neighbourhood where she was raised in a Christian, Republican, patriotic home. Jones’s standing in the community and her pride in her achievements as a librarian made her totally unprepared for the unwarranted attacks on her following her 2022 speech against book banning in her local library. 

Her argument was straightforward: libraries are for everyone. Everyone should feel represented by the material therein and no-one has the right to censor material they disapprove of. Parents should monitor their own child’s reading, but they don’t have the right to dictate what other children can read.

She said: “Hate and fear disguised as moral outrage have no place here.”

Immediately, an organised online campaign of character assassination began, exemplified by this email: “Amanda, you are indoctrinating our children perversion and paedophilia grooming. Your evil agenda is getting print+national coverage. Congrats. Continue with your LGBT agenda on our children cause we gunna put ur fat evil Commie PEDO azz in the dirt very soon bitch. You can't hide. We know where you work + live... you have a LARGE target on your back. Click, clic… see you soon.”

After experiencing shock, disbelief and betrayal (many attacks on her reputation came from life-long friends) Jones’s feelings of indignation and anger prompted her to take action and fight back.

This memoir is a record of her determined struggle to clear her name and her desire to present to the public the reality of the book-banning movement, which is well-funded and well-co-ordinated; fronted by organisations such as Panhandle Patriots and Warriors for Christ, who now enjoy increased legitimacy from the re-election of Donald Trump. 

Jones addresses the reader directly as “you” pulling you into her narrative which weaves in and out of her childhood experiences, her views on the importance of libraries as one of the last free-to-the-public institutions in the US, her pride in her profession and her campaign to clear her name.

This is a deeply personal account, colloquially written, of the hell she has lived through; the writing experience must have given her some degree of catharsis as well as shining a light on the murky practice of book-banning.