by James LaRue
3 stars
A quick read that works well as an introduction to the topics of censorship, book challenges and bans, and intellectual freedom. As a public librarian, I appreciate LaRue’s accounts of fighting censorship and his examples of how challenges can arise, how to deal with them, and why giving in to censorship doesn’t work.
Overall, a helpful read, though I found the reading experience unbalanced. The first section, which is the bulk of the book, was the most helpful and relevant to me personally as a librarian. Pulling from news events and his own experiences with book challenges and censorship while working in public libraries and at ALA’s OIF, LaRue discusses the importance of intellectual freedom and puts efforts to challenge books into perspective. I found LaRue’s experience across various environments especially helpful.
In the second section LaRue takes on cancel culture and expands the book’s scope beyond the public library to discuss academic institutions, social media, news outlets, and religion. For me, this section attempted to get too broad and became unfocused, tending toward ranting at times.
The last section provides fairly straight-forward ways to get involved and help support intellectual freedom.
Overall, it was nicely written though unbalanced. Would be a good place to start for those looking to understand the current climate of book bans and challenges and those looking for ways to support libraries and intellectual freedom.