The American Library Association reports it’s seeing fewer calls for books to be removed from library shelves this year, compared to 2023.
But the head of the Baltimore County Public Library said libraries across Maryland and the U.S. remain targets of censorship.
Through August, the ALA reported 414 attempts nationwide to censor books and other holdings in 2024. That compares to nearly 700 challenges during the same period last year.
Sonia Alcántara-Antoine, the CEO of the Baltimore County Public Library, said they have had two book challenges so far this year. There were seven in 2023.
According to the ALA, nearly half of the books being challenged nationwide are about LGBTQ issues or topics involving race.
“That’s not a coincidence,” Alcántara-Antoine said. “I think that there is an attempt to silence or suppress voices, people who do not fit into a certain box or a certain category.”
This is the ALA’s annual Banned Books Week. The county library is marking it by prominently displaying books that have been challenged or banned in the U.S. Gender Queer is there. So are George Orwell’s 1984 and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
“There are books on the shelf at the library that I do not particularly agree with or care to read,” Alcántara-Antoine said. “That’s the whole point.”
She said a library collection is a marketplace of ideas.
“Libraries don’t tell you what to think but through reading you can learn to think for yourself,” Alcántara-Antoine said.
The Baltimore Sun reported in August that the Carroll County Public Schools has removed 21 books from school libraries. Most of the requests for removal came from the Carroll County chapter of the conservative group Moms For Liberty.
The Baltimore County Public Schools had considered a challenge to Gender Queer, but spokesman Charles Herndon said it remains on the shelves at several BCPS libraries.
Earlier this year, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation requiring local school districts and library systems to adopt book review policies that guarantee no book is removed from shelves “because of partisan, ideological, or religious disapproval.”
Alcántara-Antoine said the Baltimore County Public Library has a book review policy in place. She said if a parent objects to a book because of its content, librarians will help find an alternative.
“What’s not appropriate is for that parent to say, ‘well because it’s inappropriate for my child, therefore no child can have access to that book,” Alcántara-Antoine said.
