My Book Is Horrifying. My Book Is a Lifeline. My Book Is Banned.

NYT OPINION: My Book Is Horrifying. My Book Is a Lifeline. My Book Is Banned.
By Patricia McCormick
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 7, 2023 at 03:00AM

The organized movement to ban books in schools is betraying the young people it claims to protect.

Last year, a parent at a Virginia school board meeting stepped up to a microphone and read a passage from my book, “Sold.” The scene she chose to read, informed in part by my own experiences of sexual abuse, describes the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl by an older man. There is no graphic language or obscenity in the passage; the story is told from the point of view of a child — in the words of a child — and conveys her confusion, terror and physical pain. The passage, this parent claimed, was “pornography.” Pornography, according to the Cornell University Law School, is defined as “material that depicts nudity or sexual acts for the purpose of sexual stimulation,” or in many other accepted definitions, “intended to arouse.” And many people have struggled to define pornography — most famously Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who said, “I know it when I see it.” PEN America reported last month that “Sold” was one of the most banned books in the United States at the start of the 2022-23 school year. It made the list thanks, in part, to Moms for Liberty, a right-wing organization that has created a playbook that’s been used across the country — by people who in some case are not even parents — to lobby to have books removed from libraries and classrooms.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/opinion/sexual-assualt-book-ban.html