Banned Book Awards champions children’s right to read

Judy Blume connected digitally at the ceremony and was honored with a lifetime achievement award.
Alexander Wilburn
Judy Blume connected digitally at the ceremony and was honored with a lifetime achievement award.
There can be no question that democratic freedoms are currently being attacked and restricted in the United States, and somehow, children and the information they have access to have been the ongoing targets of attack.
As AP News reported in 2023: “More than 1,200 challenges were compiled in 2022, nearly double the then-record total from 2021 and by far the most since the American Library Association began keeping data 20 years ago.” Conservative groups across the country have become well-organized machines harassing individual public and school librarians with threats of legal and violent action. The message from these groups, often supported by government leaders, is that children should not have access to books — books meant for young readers — that engage with topics of race, gender or sexual identity.
At Fisher Center at Bard College, the inaugural Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards was held Saturday night, Feb. 17, honoring a group of middle-grade and young adult authors with the first Awards for Bravery in Literature. These recipients, authors of some of the most challenged books in the country by counties, local governments and school boards, were acknowledged for their literary accomplishments and for championing stories full of independent thought, compassion and important social messages.
The award ceremony was hosted by Anna Eleanor Fierst, Roosevelt’s great-granddaughter and chair of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill. Fierst was joined on the stage by speakers Emily Drabinski, the president of the American Library Association; George McCalman, author of “Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and Unseen”; Matt Nosanchuck, the deputy assistant secretary for operations and outreach in the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education; Lee Rowland, policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU); and Cameron Samuels, a student at Brandeis University and the executive director of SEAT, a youth civic organization. Last year, at age 18, Samuels testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee addressing book bans.
The recipients of the Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature were the following, in alphabetical order:
— Laurie Halse Anderson for “Shout: The True Story of a Survivor Who Refused to be Silenced” from Viking Books. Anderson is the author of the 1999 young adult novel “Speak,” adapted into a Sundance Festival film in 2004 starring Kristen Stewart. “Speak” tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who is raped at a party the summer before her first year of high school and finds herself ostracized by her fellow students as she finds the strength to name her assailant. Twenty years later, Anderson wrote “Shout,” a companion memoir about her own adolescence. “Speak” was a National Book Award finalist, but in 2020, was also named the fourth most banned and challenged book in the United States.
— Mike Curato for “Flamer” from Macmillan. A semi-autobiographical graphic novel written and illustrated by Curato, set in 1995, it details a summer at a sleepaway Boy Scouts camp where a 14-year-old Filipino boy navigates changes in his male friend group — which include bullying and homophobic slurs — leaving him isolated, hating himself and contemplating suicide. PEN America reported that “Flamer” was banned in schools in at least six states during the 2021-22 school year, and in Utah’s Alpine School District, was filed as “pornographic.”
Macmillan
— Alex Gino for “Melissa” (previously published as “George”) from Scholastic. “Melissa” has appeared on the American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Challenged Books list every year since its publication. The children’s novel follows a 10-year-old transgender girl named Melissa, known as “George” to her family, whose one wish is to play the role of the talking spider Charlotte in her fourth-grade class’s production of “Charlotte’s Web.” The novel was at the center of the 2018-19 Oregon Battle of the Books controversy, a school reading challenge that two school districts refused to participate in because of the inclusion of “Melissa” on the reading list.
— George M. Johnson for “All Boys Aren’t Blue” from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A coming-of-age memoir, Johnson details their ’90s youth in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a focus on coming to terms with their Black and queer identity while also addressing Black, queer male readers today as they search for role models and representation in their own lives. In 2021, a Flagler County school board member and a retired teacher filed a criminal complaint against the Florida school’s superintendent for carrying the book.
Macmillan
— Maia Kobabe for “Gender Queer” from Simon and Schuster. The graphic novel written and illustrated by Kobabe has been in the eye of the book-banning storm since its publication, publicly challenged by conservative politicians like South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, among others, citing the novel to be “obscene for unrestricted viewing by minors.” In a town hall in 2023, Youngkin was called out on his views on the book and trans youth by a transmasculine Arlington high school student named Niko. “Look at me,” Niko said to Youngkin. “I am a transgender man. Do you really think that the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me?”
Simon and Schuster
— Jelani Memory for “A Kids Book About Racism” from Penguin Random House. The young reader’s book for ages 3-6 was initially written for Memory’s own children — his four white step-children and two Black biological children — before he submitted the book for publication. The introduction tells children, “This is a book about racism. For reals! And yes, it really is for kids. It’s a good book to read with a grownup. Because you’ll have lots to talk about afterward.”
The ceremony’s Lifetime Achievement Award was presented by NYCLU’s Lee Rowland to the incomparable author of beloved young adult books, Judy Blume, who joined the audience digitally from her home in Key West, Florida.
Since the publication of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” in 1970, the name Judy Blume has been synonymous with the inner heart of girlhood. The author of classics like “Blubber,” “Tiger Eyes,” and “Forever...,” Blume has not only captured the complexity of puberty as childhood innocence slips away and the shadow of adulthood looms, but taken the emotions and plights of young girls seriously. Tackling stories centering on faith, death, virginity and love, Blume’s novels continue to be a lifeline to readers grappling with understanding a world that often deliberately hides uncomfortable truths, even when it comes to a girl’s own body and mind.
“As someone who argued with [former White House communications director] Pat Buchanan over masturbation, I’m sorry to say I’ve heard a lot [when it comes to challenging books],” Blume said at the ceremony. “It is different today. It is scarier because it is coming from the government more and more, and from state legislatures. It is very political now. We just have to keep going. We just have to keep working together.”
Her advice to her fellow authors, as well as to young aspiring novelists, was clear: “You’ve got to knock the critic off one shoulder, and you’ve got to knock the censor off the other shoulder. When you’re locked up in your little room writing, you cannot think of what will happen. You just have to go for it.”
Join The Lakeville Journal for a community celebration, featuring local nonprofits and businesses, festive family fun, great food, and engaging activities.
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Canaan Carnival
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Bunny McGuire Park
Cocktail Party
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Douglas Library | 108 Main St.
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8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
North Canaan Fire Co. | 4 E. Main St.
3rd Annual Fly-In
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Triumph Airfield | 547 W. Main St.
Canaan Railroad Station Museum
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New England Accordion Connection
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Barbecued Chicken Dinner
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St. Martin of Tours | 4 Main St.
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6 p.m.
Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org