To commemorate Banned Books Week, the Door County Public Library took to its Facebook page to post a list of the top five banned books of 2024 along with the caption, “It’s banned books week. See the top five bans in 2024. How many of them have you read?”
The first on the list was All Boys Aren’t Blue, and the second was Gender Queer.
For reasons that are unknown, the Door County Public Library removed the post.
Rather than me waste my allotted words on direct quotes from these books and seeing the editorial staff have a justifiable conniption, I’ll leave it to the readers to research what is in these books. I recommend you not do it from a work computer.
This isn’t about pornography. Americans seem to have no problem with pornography. I’m sure content creators are pulling in sizable profits, while fans have access to all the porn they can handle. Pornography though, much like a brandy Old-Fashioned, is for adults. The objections come when pornography is aimed at children. The above listed books found their way into classrooms and school libraries around the country, and thus the pushback.
The Hallmarkian image of Door County has been racked by headlines related to child pornography cases in recent years. The Door County Public Library’s glib post was ill-timed.
Paul Kwiatkowski
Fish Creek, Wisconsin