banned books

This is how the book most threatened with bans in school districts across the United States, Maia Kobabe’s memoir Gender Queer , draws you in at its beginning: “A good way to get started is by listing your biggest secrets - at least one of them should suggest a story.”

Secrets, are, in fact, intoxicating and whatever secrets banned books hold seem to fan interest in them. According to Tara Maria Fernandes, a teacher of English Literature who has worked in India, the country with the highest number of books banned, and in the United States, where more than 4000 books were challenged to be banned in the last full school year, “If you're teaching high school literature. Very interestingly, the students gravitate towards banned books. And if it's more provocative, the more they want to read it.”

“The moment you ban, it becomes that much more irresistible and alluring. Sometimes. It won't even be something significant enough to be banned,” she adds.

Gender Queer , was challenged more than 80 times in the last full school year

“If a text is speaking to teenagers, it’s whatever everyone's talking about on Instagram, or it's what everyone needs to be reading, or it's because it's speaking to something within them, so let's talk about it or at least have different perspectives,” says Fernandes.

Still, the tide is not looking up for Gender Queer . It is still on track to be the most challenged book this school year. In the last two school years, it has been challenged over 100 times in total and challenges against the memoir now take up 29% of the total top 5 challenges so far this year.

In fact, books with gender related titles are at the highest risk of being challenged in the United States.

In comparing her time teaching in Bangalore and that in New York City, Fernandes says, “I think in the US as well, it's very, very prevalent, because teachers have a lot less freedom in the teaching of their curriculum. So like, they can't choose books of their own liking.”

“They're far more circumscribed by the defined curriculum,” she adds.

The United States has banned 13 books in the last one hundred years, placing it sixth among countries with most banned specific books. However, significantly, more books are challenged than banned. In the last full school year, 4.023 books have been challenged, resulting in bans within certain schools, restricted access or books being pulled from shelves In the current school year, there are already more than half the number books challenged than the last school year.

Texas and Florida have the highest number of books challenged at school district level.

Texas and Florida have the highest number of school districts challenging books. States in the eastern half of the US generally have a higher number of school districts challenging books.

Louisiana's libraries have the most instances of books being challenged or banned. Compared to school districts, there are fewer cases of books in public libraries being challenged, though still significant.

As challenges to books increase, Fernandes is keen to find a resolution for book bans that investigates the attraction students feel towards certain texts and supports them as they consume them.

In the current school year alone, which is yet to end, the highest number of challenges in any school district is 623, already 1.4 times the highest in the most recent full school year.

“My philosophy both back home and here is that, in any case, students are accessing anything that's remotely taboo. Or if you've banned it, you're making people talk about it, all the more. So they're going to be reading it online. They're going to be watching stuff they're not going to watch so I much prefer to give little openings or platforms in which we can discuss it and discuss what is controversial about it,” says Fernandes.

“Through the TV show Thirteen Reasons Why and the book, they realized, look, students are going to be reading it anyway. So what can we as teachers do, we can give them a space that they can talk about it? Again, we're not vouching or we're not like legitimizing it. But it's inevitable that students are going to be reading whatever is the latest, whatever is drawing the most attention,” she adds.

“Everything can be disturbing or provocative to one person or the other. But it's whether the English teacher should be held culpable or responsible for a student's reaction to a text. So yeah, so I make it like a dialogue between my students and their families as well, some of the acid, choose a book, talk to your parents about whether it's appropriate or not, whether it's at your reading level. Some mature readers can handle a lot,” says Fernandes.

Globally, the banning of books in some countries could be much less formal than is the case in the United States.

In India, for instance, the knowledge of secrets is part of the currency necessary for buying the books.

“There is like an illicit understanding with booksellers, if you ask them for it, they always have a few copies at the back, and they will give it to you. So there's no books that are that we cannot buy from a bookshop in India,” says Fernandes.

Additionally, online access continues to be available via platforms such as Amazon and Libgen where students can access PDFs of books.

In the last a hundred years, India has banned the highest number of specific books worldwide, but Indonesia had banned all Chinese literature

In the last a hundred years, India has banned the highest number of specific books worldwide

Each box is a book.

On the global stage, though book banning is certainly a controversial topic, within the last century, just as many books have been banned in recent years as at the beginning of the century.

About just as many books are being banned today as at the beginning of the last century.

Each rectangle is a book.

But even though the numbers of books banned in different epochs within the last century are generally constant, there is still a trend in terms of time, that is, that the definition of what is shocking shifts.

“I give my students a 1930s short story to read by Ismat Chughtai. She's writing from a very conservative Islamic household. And she's talking about same sex desire in the 1930s in India. When I did it in my undergrad I, I found it quite shocking. And I give it to my students, they don't bat an eyelid. They’re like, 'Miss, may we please show you what we're reading right now?' And it's a different world out there,” says Fernandes.

“So it's whether we're protecting the students or whether we're realizing that they're going to be faced with provocative challenging literature and film anywhere they go. If you see what they're watching and what they're reading online, it would absolutely shock you,” says Fernandes.

Fiction books, most prominently novels are the books banned the most over the last century, at 1.6 times the rate of books classified as nonfiction.

Each rectangle is a book.

Fiction books, particularly novels, generally more likely to be banned than non-fiction

Last year, Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and capacity in his hand due to an attack on him. His book has been banned in 18 countries worldwide as well as the US. Rushdie's The Satanic Verses has been banned three times as much as the second most banned book globally and nearly double the number of novels are banned compared to non-fiction books, including 67% of the 6 most banned books

Fernandes draws her philosophy on guiding adolescents through difficult texts in part from her uncle, a Muslim scholar, who she recalls said, “When you place a ban on a book, it's almost condescending, saying that you don't trust your readers to be able to discern, and to make up their minds for themselves.”

“Maybe they believe that literature, is that powerful that it can sway your belief, or it can make make you unpatriotic. Some of these groups are saying ‘No, our people need to be sheltered from the corrupting influences of literature.’ How much faith do we put on the reader to discern?’