UNEXPECTED CASUALTIES IN THE WAR ON BOOKS

Librarians were once considered honorable public servants, but today, local book-banning efforts cast them as the enemy

- Elizabeth A. Harris AND Alexandra Alter

Martha Hickson, a high school librarian in Annandale, New Jersey, heard in fall 2021 that some parents were going to call for her library to ban certain books. So at 7 p.m., when she and her husband would usually watch Jeopardy!, she got comfortable in her recliner and turned on a livestream of the local school board meeting.

A parent stood up and denounced two books, Lawn Boy and Gender Queer, calling them pornographic. Both books, award winners with LGBTQ characters and frank depictions of sex, have been challenged around the country. They were available at the North Hunterdon High School library, where Hickson worked. Then the woman called out Hickson by name for allowing her 16-year-old son to check out the books.

“This amounts to an effort to groom our kids to make them more willing to participate in the heinous acts described in these books,” said the parent, Gina DeLusant, according to a video recording of the meeting. It grooms them to accept the inappropriate advances of an adult.’

Hickson said the accusation left her sick to her stomach, with a tightness in her chest. I was stunned,’ she said. T couldn't believe it.’

As highly visible and politicized book bans have exploded across the country, librarians—accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities—have found themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and personal reputations at risk.

They have been labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials. Some librarians have quit after being harassed online. Others have been fired for refusing to remove books from circulation.