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PEN America Profile picture
@PENamerica
May 25 • 9 tweets • 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
DeSantis: “The whole book ban thing is a hoax.”

Reality: "DeSantis is vastly playing down the extent to which individual school districts & libraries... have removed books... Florida ranks 2nd, as the state with the most bans, according to PEN America." nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says reports of book banning in Florida are a "hoax" and that only "pornographic and inappropriate" materials have been removed from Florida classrooms.

His claims are false. #BannedBooks #NotAHoax pen.org/florida-book-b…
In the 2021-22 school year PEN America documented 565 books banned in Florida schools. Some were banned permanently, others temporarily pending investigations. The result is the same: Students can’t access books. You can see how we define a book ban here. pen.org/book-bans-freq…
DeSantis has called book banning a "hoax." Meanwhile, Leon school district is reviewing "I am Billie Jean King" by @bradmeltzer based on one parent's complaint about the line: "You can’t choose who you fall in love with. Your heart will tell you." tallahassee.com/story/news/loc…
A Florida high school banned an illustrated Anne Frank's Diary after Moms for Liberty claimed it "minimized the Holocaust."

The book by David Polonsky & Ari Folman was authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation.

Folman’s parents are Holocaust survivors. apnews.com/article/censor…
In April, a book @ryanestrada described as "the true story of my wife learning she lived in a dictatorship by reading banned books, as cops hunted her to try and stop her" was one of 28 books removed in a FL school district based on one man's complaint.
Last week, PEN America, @penguinrandom and a group of authors and parents sued a Florida school district in federal court alleging its unconstitutional book bans had violated both the 1st and 14th amendments.

Details in this thread:
This week, The Hill We Climb, a bestselling book by @TheAmandaGorman that has become an inspiration to young readers across America, was removed from elementary school library shelves in Miami-Dade County as the result of one parent's complaint.

More: pen.org/press-release/… Image
While politicians and activists claim book bans are targeting only "pornography," the examples in this thread tell a different story.

See also: The most banned picture books of the 2021-22 school year, including lighthearted works about animals & babies. pen.org/banned-picture…

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More from @PENamerica

PEN America Profile picture
May 26
"How do 11 people think they have the right to tell all students what they are allowed to read?" asks @JoyAnnReid.

#BannedBooks
ICYMI: An analysis by The Washington Post found that "a majority of book challenges can be attributed to a very small number of people—11 to be exact."

These repeat challengers are often assisted by conservative book banning groups like Moms for Liberty. bookriot.com/washington-pos…
PEN America's April 2023 #BannedInTheUSA report documented "an escalation of book bans and censorship in classrooms and school libraries across the United States," with book bans most prevalent in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina.

➡️pen.org/report/banned-… Image
Read 5 tweets
PEN America Profile picture
May 25
Fighting the Book Bans: What Can We Do?

Read free: nytimes.com/2023/05/25/opi…
"The deepest fear that book banners, homophobes and misogynists share is the terrifying possibility that reading and thinking might lead to questioning, or even challenging, long-held biases!" Nancy Kohl, in a letter to the New York Times.
"I don’t understand why... the burden was placed on parents to opt in to allow their children to access restricted titles... Those parents raising objections should be the ones to opt out, if certain books make them uncomfortable." Merri Rosenberg, in a letter to the NY Times.
Read 4 tweets
PEN America Profile picture
May 24
🧵A K-8 school in Miami-Dade County recently removed @TheAmandaGorman's The Hill We Climb from elementary school library shelves. They say it’s not been banned, but… Image
... When you restrict or diminish access to a book, that’s a ban.

Moving the book to middle school shelves means elementary students can’t or won’t get it.

Their access has diminished. (2/x)
The Hill We Climb was widely praised and read at a Presidential Inauguration.

It was moved to middle schools along with @OhReallyRio's The ABC’s of Black History.

This cannot be separated from the wider movement to restrict books by Black authors and about Black history. (3/x)
Read 11 tweets
PEN America Profile picture
May 24
"Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech." @TheAmandaGorman
“The government should not foster censorship by proxy, allowing one person to decide what ideas are out of bounds for all,” said PEN America's Nadine Farid Johnson in a statement regarding PEN America's recent lawsuit against book bans in Florida. newrepublic.com/post/172938/fl…
Gorman said the reason she wrote “The Hill We Climb” was to give young people the chance to see “themselves in a historical moment,” adding that her publisher @penguinrandom has joined a PEN America Florida lawsuit to challenge book restrictions and bans. news.yahoo.com/amanda-gorman-…
Read 4 tweets
PEN America Profile picture
Mar 31
DeSantis called reports of book bans in #Florida “a hoax in service of trying to pollute and sexualize our children.”

Teachers in fear of felony charges carrying up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine would beg to differ. #FreeTheBooks #Education motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
“Jean Faulk, a 65-year-old world history teacher… had carefully curated her classroom library over the years, and the task of combing through several hundred volumes seemed insurmountable. So later that day she stripped her shelves… only dictionaries and encyclopedias remained”
“In Jacksonville, a third-grade teacher penned an op-ed describing how one of her students, an avid reader, had cried after learning he couldn’t access the classroom library.” #FreedomToRead #Florida
Read 4 tweets
PEN America Profile picture
Mar 30
Musk is "dismantling everything that made Twitter valuable—making it his mission to drive out expertise, scare away celebrities, bully reporters and—on the flip side—reward the bad actors... who thrive in the opposite environment: An information vacuum." techcrunch.com/2023/03/28/twi…
"If the point is simply pure destruction — building a chaos machine by removing a source of valuable information from our connected world," writes @riptari.... "then (Musk)’s done a remarkable job in very short order." #Twitter #SocialMedia
"When I reached out to Musk... with questions about his failed promises, he didn’t respond. But I did receive an auto-reply poop emoji from the press@twitter.com email... It’s perhaps one of the only pledges he has actually delivered on." @oliverdarcy cnn.com/2023/03/29/med…
Read 7 tweets

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