{"id":37117,"date":"2026-06-16T09:43:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37117"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:43:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:43:58","slug":"you-cant-read-that-128","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37117","title":{"rendered":"You Can’t Read That!"},"content":{"rendered":"

You Can\u2019t Read That! is a periodic post about book banning and censorship. YCRT! features news and opinion roundups, commentary, history, and reviews.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

From Usha Vance’s Instagram page:
\nBooks hung from trees at J.D. Vance residence as part of Usha Vance’s summer reading initiative: Usha Vance, wife of Vice President J.D. Vance, has relaunched her Summer Reading Challenge to combat declining literacy rates among children, but the initiative has sparked sharp criticism targeting not only her but also former First Lady Melania Trump and political figures. Photo credit: unknown.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Reference the title photo: the only “sharp criticism” I’ve seen centers around the irony of Trump administration figures, book banners to a man and woman, embracing a program to combat declining literacy among children. Could the strange fruit hanging from the trees in the Vance’s back yard be a selection of banned books, symbolically placed out of reach of curious young readers? \u2014 Paul W.<\/em><\/p>\n

YCRT! News Roundup<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Bill to Standardize Book Bans in Mass. Libraries Likely Headed to Governor\u2019s Desk<\/strong><\/a> (GBH News: Boston Public Radio)<\/p>\n

The Massachusetts House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would set statewide standards for removing a book from circulation in public and school libraries. A similar bill, modeled after Freedom to Read laws passed elsewhere, already passed the state Senate last year. Andrea Fiorillo, co-chair of the Massachusetts Library Association\u2019s Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibilities Committee, said that since 2021 there\u2019s been a record-breaking wave of censorship aimed at American libraries. The measure, she said, will protect library staff and the public\u2019s right to access information.<\/p>\n

As Censorship Expands, Autonomous Libraries Are Springing up to Fill the Gaps<\/a><\/strong> (Truthout)<\/p>\n

From California to Illinois to Oregon, flourishing anarchist libraries are spreading knowledge and building community.<\/p>\n

The Side That Won the Civil War Is Now Banning Books About Why the Civil War Was Fought<\/strong><\/a> (Literary Hub)<\/p>\n

In May of 2025, a few months into Donald Trump\u2019s second term, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Order 3431 entitled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History.\u201d It directed the superintendents of national parks and monuments to \u201creview property for inappropriate content\u201d and scrub their facilities of \u201cany signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox County Schools Adds Pulitzer Prize-Winning \u2018Roots\u2019 to List of Banned Books<\/a><\/strong> (10News: WBIR Knoxville TN)<\/p>\n

Knox County Schools has banned the 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Roots,” credited with raising awareness about Black American history and sparking interest by all Americans in their genealogy. […] The district is able to remove the book from shelves under the Age-Appropriate Materials Act. The law broadly restricts materials from being available to students if they contain nudity, sexual abuse, sexual content or “excessive violence.” While it still allowed materials to be taught during class, the law required materials to be removed from school library shelves.<\/p>\n

Huntington Beach Ordered to Pay $1 Million in Lawyer Fees in Library Censorship Lawsuit<\/a><\/strong> (Orange County Register)<\/p>\n

In October 2023, the conservative majority of the Huntington Beach City Council directed librarians to relocate from the children\u2019s section books containing sexually explicit material. The restricted titles, which included \u201cIt\u2019s Perfectly Normal\u201d and \u201cSex is a Funny Word,\u201d were placed on a shelf on the fourth floor of the Central Library and could not be checked out without parental consent. The council also arranged to establish a community library board, made up of 21 members appointed by the councilmembers, that would be tasked with reviewing and blocking the purchase of books with content it deemed inappropriate. In a June 2024 special election, Huntington Beach voters overwhelmingly approved measures to eliminate the community review board and bar the privatization of libraries. After losing in court in September, the city was ordered to dismantle the restricted section and restore the teen section at the library, as well as establish legal protections for librarians against pushback from the city.<\/p>\n

Moms for Liberty Wanted a Seat on the School Board. Trump Gave Them a Voice in the White House.<\/a><\/strong> (AP)<\/p>\n

Supporters say the group\u2019s trajectory speaks to the power of its \u201cparental rights\u201d agenda, which has become a plank of conservative politics. Critics are alarmed by its presence at the White House, saying the group promotes extreme views and undermines public schools.<\/p>\n

Four More Books Banned from All Utah Public Schools; 27 Now Banned Statewide<\/strong><\/a> (BookRiot)<\/p>\n

This week, Utah has added four more books to its list of titles banned from every public school in the state, including an additional title by one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Those books are Breathless by Jennifer Niven, The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley, The Handmaid\u2019s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and illustrated by Renee Nault, and Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold (a party in the lawsuit against the state).<\/p>\n

\u2018True American Patriot\u2019: Librarian Risks Her Job After Refusing to Move LGBTQ+ Books<\/a><\/strong> (HuffPost)<\/p>\n

A Tennessee librarian is fighting back against what she\u2019s calling \u201ca clear act of viewpoint discrimination\u201d as she refuses to abide by an order to move over 100 children\u2019s\/teen books with LGBTQ+ themes to the adult section.<\/p>\n

This Tale of a Chicago School Book Ban Was Inspired by True Events<\/a><\/strong> (AZPM: National Public Radio)<\/p>\n

[…] I tore through librarian Jarrett Dapier’s debut young adult graphic novel, Wake Now in the Fire. The book, illustrated by AJ Dungo, is a fictionalized account of real-life events. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) suddenly restricted access to Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Persepolis, without explanation of its decision-making process, in some of the school system’s classrooms. This now world-famous autobiographical work, told in comics, tells the story of a young girl and her family as they endure and witness the struggle and violence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and all that comes after.<\/p>\n

YCRT Banned Book Review<\/h4>\n

The last entry in my YCRT! news roundup, above, is about Jarrett Dapier’s graphic novel Wake Now in the Fire, which tells the story of the 2013 banning of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis by the Chicago public school system. It so happens I read and reviewed Persepolis shortly after that infamous banning. In light of Marjane Satrapi’s recent death<\/a><\/strong>, I think it’s fitting to repost that banned book review here. BTW I have ordered a copy of Wake Now in the Fire from my local library. I’ll post a review of it in a future YCRT! column. \u2014 Paul W.<\/em><\/p>\n

YCRT! Banned Book Review<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"persepolis\"<\/a>Persepolis<\/a><\/strong>
\nMarjane Satrapi
\n\"4_0\"<\/p>\n

This is a well-known graphic novel, actually a memoir, first published in English in 2003. Clearly, I’m late to the party. It’s only the second graphic memoir I’ve read & reviewed: the other was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home<\/em> (click here<\/strong><\/a> for my review). The fact that Persepolis<\/em>, like Fun Home<\/em>, has been the subject of challenges and bannings is what drew me to it.<\/p>\n

Persepolis<\/em> itself, divorced from any discussion of why anyone would want to prevent others from reading it, is a straightforward memoir of the author’s childhood in Tehran. She was a young girl when the Shah went into exile and religious fundamentalists took over the country. She lived through the revolution and internal repression that followed, the American hostage crisis, and the Iran\/Iraq war, emerging from these experiences as a teenager. In Persepolis<\/em>, she recounts the effects these tumultuous events had on her parents, her friends, her relatives, her country, and herself.<\/p>\n

Had Persepolis<\/em> been written as a conventional memoir I doubt it would have had much impact … that is if it got published at all. But as a black & white graphic memoir, drawn in minimalist style, it’s strangely powerful, and, perhaps even more importantly, relatable. I don’t know how anyone, even the most rabid Iran hater, could read Persepolis<\/em> and not emerge from the experience a changed person. You come to understand how fundamentalism could take over a prosperous, westernized country; how secular Iranians who were justifiably proud of their country and heritage could stay and try to ride out the changes; how those with values like ours became trapped behind its walls; how, by inference, something like what happened to Iran could happen in the West, perhaps even in the USA. Marjane’s younger self … her trust in her parents, her love for her grandmother, her keen powers of observation, her growing teenaged rebelliousness … inescapably reminds you of Anne Frank, and your heart goes out to her.<\/p>\n

I passed Persepolis<\/em> on to my wife and encouraged her to read it. At some point soon, we’ll watch the animated movie on Amazon, and I’ll very likely read the sequels Marjane Satrapi has since published. Late to the party; glad to finally be here.<\/p>\n

Now, about the banning. Persepolis<\/em> has always been banned in Iran, very likely in other Muslim countries too. In 2003, when the English version was distributed in the USA, it was an immediate popular hit, also earning high praise from literary critics. The animated movie, made in 2007, won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and was nominated for an Oscar. No one in America tried to suppress it until March 2013, when it was suddenly banned from Chicago Public Schools (CPS).<\/p>\n

Via internal email, CPS school administrators were instructed to immediately remove copies of Persepolis<\/em> from libraries and classrooms. A furor ensued and one day later the school district had to back down on removing the book from libraries, but the ban on classroom use stayed in effect and continued until September of 2014. Students and teachers, backed up by organizations like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the American Library Association, protested the banning and received national news coverage.<\/p>\n

The ostensible reason for removing the book, it emerged, was two or three cartoon panels depicting the torture of Iranian dissidents. The panels themselves are neither gory nor shocking; students see far more horrifying depictions of abuse in the the chapters of their history books dealing with slavery and the Holocaust. There was also some mention of graphic language. All I saw were a couple of “shits,” pretty tame stuff by today’s standards. I’ll go out on a limb and say no one ever believed the torture panels and two “shits” were the real reasons someone wanted the book banned.<\/p>\n

Did you notice I said “someone”? Thanks to the digging of a graduate student who filed FOIA requests with CPS, it emerged earlier this year that the direction to pull Persepolis<\/em> came from the very top, from the CEO of CPS, who had been alerted to the memoir’s “graphic” content by a CPS school principal. The original direction went from the CPS CEO to her chief of teaching and learning, who included this sentence in an email to all school administrators in the CPS system: \u201cIt has come to our attention that the novel \u2018Persepolis\u2019 contains some graphic language and content that is inappropriate for children … it is imperative that we remove the books from the classroom and from the school, to decrease the likelihood of the books getting into the hands of students.\u201d This direction, by the way, went counter to CPS’s own book challenge & review policy.<\/p>\n

The first message from the chief of teaching and learning was followed by another: \u201cWho in the [Teaching and Learning] office approved this to be added to the [recommended reading] list?\u201d The chief of teaching and learning reported to the CPS CEO that she was working \u201cto identify the person(s) so that I can meet with them.\u201d The CEO, later that same day, kept the pressure on by replying that \u201csomeone is in jeopardy bc if [sic] this. Need a name.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the weeks after the initial banning in 2013, when the protest was at its height and the ham-handed banning of a highly regarded and beloved book had made Chicago a national laughingstock, the CPS CEO and her chief of teaching and learning … the very someones who wrote the messages quoted above … attempted to pin the blame on overzealous underlings who (they said) overreacted to queries from higher-ups. Thanks to the persistence of that graduate student, we now know the banning came from the very top. Personally, I expect it goes higher than that, to Chicago’s notoriously hot-headed Mayor Rahm Emanuel (but that’s just speculation on my part).<\/p>\n

No, I don’t believe two or three cartoon panels depicting torture and a couple of “shits” is the reason the CPS CEO, and possibly her ultimate boss, wanted the book banned. But I’m damned if I know what it really is. Is it that the book might make readers more understanding of, and sympathetic to, citizens of a nation that’s been a declared enemy of the USA since the late 1970s, a nation many conservative leaders openly advocate going to war with? Or is it that we don’t want kids reading anything positive about Muslims? I think the real reasons for the Chicago Public Schools banning lie somewhere in this jingoistic, bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran area. But again, that’s just me thinking out loud.<\/p>\n

While the controversy in Chicago has ended, it’s percolating up elsewhere, first in a Chicago suburb (not part of CPS), then most recently in southwestern Oregon, where one parent stood up at a school board meeting to complain that Persepolis<\/em> contains language he wasn\u2019t permitted to use before the audience, followed by another parent saying she’d pull her kids out of school if they brought Persepolis<\/em> home from the library. In the Chicago suburb, the school district voted to keep the book in classrooms and school libraries. In Oregon, the challenge is still under review.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to read more on past and present attempts to keep students from reading Persepolis, click here<\/a><\/strong> to link to an excellent and up-to-date summary from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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