Another author visits Central Bucks to speak out against potential book bans

The debate over library books in Central Bucks continued Tuesday, as another author made the case to the district’s school board for why her book shouldn’t be banned.

Jean Kwok, whose book Girl in Translation is facing a challenge, said she traveled from the Netherlands to address the board at its meeting.

“Do I seem like a person who writes pornography?” Kwok asked.

The district received 61 book challenges in February after enacting rules accompanying its policy targeting “sexualized content” in school libraries.

The complaints, and the policy’s language, have spurred fears of book removal. Last month, author Laurie Halse Anderson, who lives in Upper Dublin, told the board it would be “educational malpractice” to ban her memoir, Shout, and other books dealing with sexual abuse.

On Tuesday, Kwok said that books “are one of the most powerful tools we can give to our children,” providing insight into the lives of others and allowing children to observe mistakes without having to make them.

After writing Girl in Translation, about a girl who immigrates to America with her mother from Hong Kong and spends nights working in a Brooklyn sweatshop, Kwok said she heard from “people of all races” that the book had provided courage to work hard “and keep going in the most difficult of times.”

But it has also become a target. Booklooks, a website that has been linked to the Moms for Liberty group and lists “objectionable content” in school library books, says Girl in Translation contains “sexual activities; sexual nudity; mild/infrequent profanity; alcohol and drug use by minors; and abortion commentary.”

Numerous challenges received by Central Bucks — which provided records to The Inquirer in response to a Right to Know request — cited Booklooks, listing the same passages quoted on the website. In most of the 61 cases, challengers — whose names were redacted by the district — indicated they hadn’t read the book in question.

That was the case with the Girl in Translation challenge, which listed passages that also appear on Booklooks.

Kwok said her book depicts “some pot smoking,” kissing, and one sexual encounter — “also, really not an explicit encounter.”

“I’m a fade-to-black kind of author,” she said. “I can’t even watch R-rated movies.”

She also noted that a character considers abortion but “incidentally does not go through with” it. The challenge filed with Central Bucks called it “disturbing” that the book presented abortion as an option.

It’s unclear what will happen in response to the 61 challenges, which were filed between Feb. 7 and Feb. 14. Regulations adopted by the district to carry out the library policy say a committee appointed by the superintendent will review challenged material and issue findings within 60 days, with a possible extension of 30 days.

A person who challenged a book and doesn’t agree with the committee’s findings can appeal to the school board.

The district has not responded to questions about the status of any reviews.

At Tuesday’s meeting, school board member Jim Pepper asked Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh whether any books had gone through the challenge process. Lucabaugh answered yes, but didn’t specify how many.

“Was Lawn Boy one of those books?” Pepper asked.

“Yes,” Lucabaugh said. He said the book was not removed from school libraries.

Lawn Boy, by Jonathan Evison, is described by School Library Journal as tackling “race, sexual identity, and the crushing weight of American capitalism.” It was one of five books the district disclosed earlier this year that it had decided to review before having received any formal challenges — the others being This Book Is Gay; Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; Gender Queer; and Beyond Magenta.

At the time, Lucabaugh said the district had “a responsibility to guard against the sexualization of children” and didn’t want to ignore books that had been raised as possibly problematic more than a year earlier. Four of the five books center on LGBTQ characters — a point of controversy in the district, which has been accused of creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ students.

The district has maintained its library policy — which the board passed last year over outcry from community members and such groups as the ACLU — is focused solely on sexual content.

Addressing the challenges earlier in the meeting, school board president Dana Hunter said the board was “not aware of the books challenged and by whom.” She then said she hoped that community members would not “weaponize this process by submitting challenges for the purpose of contributing to a false narrative.” A district spokesperson didn’t respond to a question Wednesday about whether the district believes it has received challenges from people who aren’t actually seeking to remove books.

One woman who spoke during public comment, Shannon Harris, noted she had submitted the challenge to Living Dead Girl, and said she was upset that a community member had disclosed her involvement on social media.

She said that people challenged books “because they’re sexually explicit,” but noted objections to other topics, as well, including “hardcore drug use, sex abuse, battery, profanity and violence.”

“It’s good to point out these things, because we don’t think our kids should be educated with this kind of material,” Harris said. (Other topics cited in challenges included sexual and gender identity and “inflammatory racial commentary.”)

Harris said that “Booklooks did read the books, they developed their own rating system. That’s what we had to use because [Central Bucks] did not have a rating system to go by.”

Kwok said that, as a mother, she also understood the desire to protect children. But her two sons were assigned her book in school and read it.

Parenting is “a beautiful and tragic thing, when we do it correctly,” she said. “Our children grow up and they leave us.” Books, she said, can help prepare them to enter the world.

“Please don’t remove my book from school libraries,” Kwok said. “Please don’t remove any of our books.”