The film also screens on Friday, October 24 | 1:45 PM | BB
The Friday, October 24 screening is followed by a panel discussion and Q&A featuring local and regional librarians.
In these divisive times, school librarians suddenly find themselves on the front lines of the culture wars. In some states, they can face prison sentences for shelving certain books deemed “pornographic” by state legislatures—like, say, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In Texas, for instance, the Krause List has targeted 850 books focused on race and LGBTQIA+ stories, and triggered sweeping book bans across the U.S. Rather than being trusted arbiters of knowledge, librarians are regularly demonized and cast as the enemy by a well-organized conservative resistance. In the film, we watch librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts, and their own efforts to fight back. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work, they keep pushing for the freedom to read and learn. ~SM