Any list of essential children’s literature would be incomplete without Margaret Wise Brown’s “Goodnight Moon.” However, the book was included on a different list until 1972: the list of books banned by the New York Public Library.
The history of book bans is full of head-scratchers like this one and the Ohio University Zanesville Campus Library hopes to help people understand this history and call into question trends of censorship in literature.
Hosted Sept. 26, students and community members are encouraged to learn about and discuss banned or challenged books while enjoying selections of food and drink at the annual Banned Book Café. One of the main organizers of the event is Jennifer Lisy, an assistant professor of instruction in early childhood and elementary education on the OU Zanesville campus.
The Banned Book Café began in 2022 as an exclusive event for students in Lisy’s Children’s Literature course. The following year, the event invited collaboration from the Rising Educators of Ohio University Zanesville and the Muskingum County Library System, or MCLS.
“We were hesitant to invite community members to our first big event because of the types of things that we have seen at school board meetings … we were afraid we were going to have protesters … and so we kept it as a campus-only, student-only event,” Lisy said.
This year, the invitation has been extended to anyone who cares to attend, from students who stumble upon the event to curious community members.
“Banned Books Week and the café itself are really about education and informing people and providing people with information,” said Sean Fennell, the MCLS marketing and community relations director. “This is not an overly judgmental space, it’s just about letting people know these are some of the things libraries have historically dealt with and continue to deal with to this day.”
The Banned Book Café will be a judgment-free space because of the range of books included on the list of bans and challenges, including books of the Bible to literature targeted for its ties to the LGBTQ+ community.
“There are books that are banned and challenged from both ends of the political spectrum,” Lisy said.
By including such a range of polarizing topics in their discussions, the organizers of the Banned Book Café hope the event encourages conversation surrounding how one family’s rules should influence a library community and how personal relationships with books can cause people to be affected by book bans.
“I think those conversations can be difficult, but I think being able to actually touch and see and look at and remember these books from childhood can be really powerful,” Lisy said.
The tangible setup of the café is described by Haley Shaw, the MCLS youth services manager, as a “book tasting” which encourages participants to engage in samples of banned books and fill out a booklet to guide their thoughts and discussions.
“We have all the books laid out on the tables and information about those books and why they may have been banned or challenged in the past,” Shaw said.
The list of banned and challenged books of the past and present is exhaustive. Fennell has rarely encountered a person who can’t find a personal favorite book even in the library’s small selection of books off of that list.
“It also really demonstrates in a very personal and meaningful way … how slippery that slope can be of banning books,” Fennell said. “If we ban a book for this reason, it leaves all of these books open to banning.”
According to the American Library Association, “the number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, or OIF, in more than 20 years of tracking.”
This statistic makes events like the Banned Book Café all the more relevant. This theme of timeliness will also be encouraged at the event with a voter registration table as Nov. 5 draws ever closer.
“It really is just an opportunity for people to engage in a civil, positive discussion and learn from one another, and I hope by attending the event people learn a little something about how libraries select the books they choose to have in the library,” Shaw said.
