Book Banning in 21st-Century America [Hardcover]

With book banning increasing around America, this book breaks down how and why contemporary reading practices can lead to censorship.
Requests for the redaction, removal, relocation, and restriction of books  also known as challenges  have markedly increased in the 2020s.Book Banning in 21st-Century Americaexamines 25 contemporary cases of book challenges in schools and public libraries across the United States, demonstrating the significance of contemporary reading practices, especially interpretive strategies, in understanding why some attempt to censor books in public institutions.

What does it mean to read a text? How do readers construct their own ideas about what constitutes appropriate reading materials? This book focuses on the why of censorship and posits that many censorship behaviors and practices, such as challenging books and targeting public libraries and schools, are intimately tied to the challenger's understanding of the practice of reading and its effects on character development and behavior. It discusses reading as an evolving social practice that encompasses different physical modalities and interpretive strategies.

Based on 25 contemporary book challenge cases in schools and public libraries across the United States, this book argues that understanding contemporary reading practices, especially interpretive strategies, is vital to understanding why people attempt to censor books in public institutions.

Emily Knoxis a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics and policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. She is also a member of the Mapping Information Access research team.

Her book,Book Banning in 21st Century America(Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars' SerielÓ!