Fantasy has been big business over the last couple decades, the attention drawn to the genre by entertainment juggernauts like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have a tendency to attract negative attention even as hoards of eager fans gobble up multiple editions of the books, sequels, prequels, movies, television series, and even stage plays.  But this mass appeal seems to only feed the desire to restrict it.  Keep Reading, keep thinking!

In this podcast special for Banned books week 2023, we’re talking about recently banned books and why they are important.  This episode features books with LGBTQIA+ representation.  Books with LGBTQIA+ stories are amongst the most banned these days.  Of the 13 most challenged titles in 2022 according to the American Library Association, six had LGBTQIA+ stories. The most banned book for two years running is GenderQueer by Maia Kobabe, a graphic format memoir. Keep Reading, keep thinking!

This episode focuses on two book series that have been banned that cover a lot of ground dealing with race: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which has a prequel, Concrete Rose, and New Kid series by Jerry Kraft, which is up to three volumes including Class Act and School Trip.  Rather than reviewing the objections made by those who would have the book banned, I’d like to talk about why I think these are important books.This podcast was produced by Outreach & Engagement Librarian Isabel Guzman.  Our sound engineer is iStudio student Andrew Erhard.  Special thanks to Systems & Discovery Librarian Sanjeet Mann.Keep Reading, keep thinking!