Photo Credit Suad Kamardeen
Judy Blume said, "Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear."
Recently we were discussing my son's summer reading assignment list, and one of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird, was among the selections.
What's it about? My son wanted to know.
Where to begin? The time and place where Mockingbird is set is a character in itself: Alabama in the early 1930s. A place in history moments past abolition, deep in the segregated South. Black people, as were women and girls, were expected to stay in their place. Lawyers were respected until they weren't. The justice system was fair until it wasn't. People were both unexpectedly cruel and kind. Familiar themes from our current political landscape, too, should make for interesting classroom discussions in 2023.
I said it's about a young girl, her brother, and her father, who is a lawyer. They live in Alabama during the Great Depression, and it's an incredible book. I'll leave the rest to him to discover, but I also didn't add that this classic has been banned for decades and is a regular on modern Challenged Book Lists.
For her part, Judy Blume has long been the public face of a censored author and has donated royalties from various projects to the National Coalition Against Censorship. She and her husband are co-founders of a bookstore in Key West, Florida, one of 18 states that have passed laws restricting lessons on race and racism and classroom discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation. The "Stop WOKE" Act, passed in 2022, bans teachers from teaching lessons or holding class discussions that would make students feel "guilt or anguish" for past actions committed by their race.
Education Week reports, "Florida's law specifically bans critical race theory, which some Republican lawmakers use as an umbrella term to target equity initiatives and teachings about systemic racism.