Welcome to Check Your Shelf. These last couple of weeks have been absolute hell on my to-do list at work. I don’t know what happened, or why the universe suddenly decided to spring a bunch of time-consuming and time-sensitive projects on me all at once, but here I am. Today, I found myself putting my head in my hands every couple of hours as I realized that I had yet another super important project/meeting coming up that I needed to juggle with all the rest of my work responsibilities. Normally I enjoy wearing a bunch of different hats at work, but sometimes you reach a point of just TOO MANY HATS. I think I’m at that point now. NO MORE HATS.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
The eBook service Hoopla brings anti-vax, Holocaust denial, and pro-LGBTQ conversion books to libraries.
EveryLibrary and PEN America sound the alarm over Kentucky’s new library law.
Cool Library Updates
The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, the Nevada Homeless Alliance, and the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth are collaborating to create a Cell Phone Library Program to provide smartphones to low-income residents and people experiencing homelessness.
Barcelona honors Gabriel Garcia Marquez with a new library.
Someone at Western University in London, Ontario, is leaving origami animals around the campus libraries!
Worth Reading
The World Health Organization warns about the dangers of health misinformation spreading as Elon Musk takes over Twitter.
5 things this person learned as a first-time manager in a predominantly white academic library.
Why libraries will never stop being people places.
The weirdest things people have left behind in books.
Book Adaptations in the News
Jenny Han has signed an overall television and film deal with Amazon Studios.
Yep, The Batman is getting a sequel.
Dave Eggers’ The Every is in development at HBO.
The film adaptation of Wicked will be split into two movies.
Netflix will adapt Mockingbird by Walter Tevis.
The Dracula spinoff movie, Mina Harker, has been scrapped.
The Aurora Teagarden Mystery movies are also likely finished.
Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon is being adapted as a limited Showtime series starring Matt Bomer.
The Netflix adaptation of Persuasion has a release date.
A look at the adaptation of Turtles All the Way Down.
Casting update for Leave the World Behind.
Here’s the first trailer for The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Banned & Challenged Books
How one district is pushing back against book banning. (This is quite good: if you haven’t followed the formal complaint process, including reading the entire book, you don’t get any allotted time to speak at board meetings.)
The ACLU demands that Houston-area schools stop removing books and apologize to their students.
Seven Llano County (TX) residents are suing the library board, county judge, commissioners, and library systems director for violating their First Amendment rights by banning books, blocking access to digital titles, and making these decisions behind closed doors.
Denton ISD (TX) school board candidates clash over whether certain books should be allowed in school libraries.
Frisco ISD (TX) updated their library website with information about the district’s book selection and complaint process.
McKinney (TX) mayor pushes back against efforts to ban books, saying that “It’s just a battle cry to turn out votes in November.”
Canyon ISD (TX) sent out a letter to parents and staff discussing the Texas Education Association’s new guidance regarding evaluating and potentially removing books that had been deemed “inappropriate.” The assistant superintendent, Cameron Rosser, said that the district goes through the list of newly purchased library books one by one, and remove anything that could be potentially harmful to students. But who’s deciding what’s harmful, and to which students?
A local YWCA is collecting banned books to donate to El Paso public libraries.
The Missouri House passed a bill restricting discussions of race in schools and creating a Parents’ Bill of Rights in regards to their children’s education.
The library book selection discussion continues at the Kirkwood School District (MO).
Kansas state senator Rick Kloos has called upon school districts to remove Gender Queer from school libraries.
A parent in the Keokuk School District (IA) has challenged the book Scottsboro Boys.
Parents in Rochester, MI have challenged several books in school libraries, including The Handmaid’s Tale, Fun Home, Check Please!, and All Boys Aren’t Blue.
Tennessee state representative Jerry Sexton said that he would burn inappropriate books in school libraries.
Wilson County Schools (TN) are implementing a “Mature Reading List” policy that would require parental permission for a student to check out a book included on the list.
Madison County Schools (MS) placed more than 20 books in restricted circulation, which means that students must have a parent’s permission to check the books out.
Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools (VA) voted against the purchase of new social studies textbooks and materials due to controversy that the proposed AP Government textbook would promote critical race theory.
The Isle of Wight County School Board (VA) has (for the moment) denied a second parent’s request to remove two apps from all school-issued iPads, saying that the apps are providing “partisan” content to students.
The Suffolk (VA) School Board debates the use of the book Walk Two Moons in a middle school literature class. One parent brought up concerns that it was too depressing, but read from a review of the book, which makes me think she didn’t actually read the book herself. (Shocking.)
The Washington County (VA) Commissioner of Revenue, Mark Matney, is trying to get Lawn Boy removed from the Glade Spring Public Library, even though the library has already reviewed the book and elected to keep it on library shelves.
The latest Forsyth County School Board (GA) meeting continued to center around the issues of book banning. A choice quote from one of the students who spoke: “These voices represent a right wing mob. When it suits them, they ask for free speech. When they don’t like it, they wish to suppress it.”
Walton County (FL) schools have removed 58 books from school libraries, including the picture book, Everywhere Babies.
Alachua County (FL) schools approved 4 of 11 math textbooks after DeSantis’ crackdown on critical race theory.
Here’s a deeper dive into the rejected textbook controversy.
Florida man asks schools to ban the Bible following the wave of statewide book challenges.
Anonymous anti-LGBTQ flyers are being distributed throughout the West Chester Area School District (PA). This is also the same area where parents were alarmingly calling for data on LGBTQ students in the district.
The Connetquot School District (NY) has pulled Gender Queer from high school shelves for review.
Some New Jersey schools are under siege from people trying to get books on race and LGBTQ+ topics pulled from library shelves.
Salem-Keizer Public Schools (OR) denies the request to ban Stamped (For Kids).
Oregon actually used to be one of the leaders in the number of book challenges. (Not that that’s a bragging right a state would want to have.)
The Solana Beach School District (CA) approved a new plan that “delegates the authority to principals and school curriculum resource teachers to select library books,” but also states that “books that “take a particular position on a debatable topic” will be placed on a “professional bookshelf in the library rather than in general circulation,” without indicating who decides what constitutes a “debatable topic” or a “particular position.”
Why did Durham (ON) District School Board remove the Indigenous children’s book, The Great Bear, from its libraries?
The Authors Guild is launching a Banned Books Club.
Stop telling authors that having a banned book is a good thing.
How to start your own banned book club.
Sex education books aren’t grooming kids…they’re protecting them.
Books & Authors in the News
Oprah selects Viola Davis’ memoir, Finding Me, as her next book club pick.
Don Winslow announces his retirement from writing.
Oxford University Press will no longer publish a particular title in the Biff, Chip, and Kipper series due to Islamophobia.
Numbers & Trends
How apps have changed the way we read.
An AI study found that there are four times as many male characters as female characters in a sample of 3,000 English language books available via Project Gutenberg.
Award News
Andrea Ellis wins the Gotham Book Prize for Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City.
The Women’s Prize shortlist has been announced.
The LA Times Book Prize winners have been announced.
The Horror Writers Association announce the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Awards.
The 2022 CWA Dagger Award longlists have been announced.
Board books finally get their own award!
Pop Cultured
Jason Momoa is in talks to star in the upcoming Minecraft movie.
The best crime dramas to watch on Netflix.
The best shows and movies to get your Nordic noir-jam on.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
LeVar Burton will host the National Spelling Bee!
On the Riot
When you’re the librarian who reads romance.
Bookstores with adoptable cats?? I want to go to there!
Bookish ways to get outside more.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Cat photos! These may look like two pictures of Dini exploring the bathroom, but they’re actually photographic evidence of the two near-heart attacks that my husband had when he got out of the shower and found Dini waiting for him. I told him he needed to shut the bathroom door when he showered and he said, “But then the bathroom gets all steamy!” So I said, “Well, would you rather have a steamy bathroom or a heart attack?? This is an easy problem to solve!”
That’s it for me, friends. Have a good weekend and keep your bathroom doors shut when you shower!
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.