The latest in book banning: Judy Blume, Margaret Atwood, Sarah J. Maas axed from Utah public schools

The state of Utah has ordered the removal of 13 books from all public school classrooms and libraries, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Six of those titles come from Sarah J. Maas’ A Court Of Thorns And Roses and Throne Of Glass series. Other books now banned in the state include Judy Blume’s Forever…, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, Rupi Kaur’s prose and poetry collection Milk And Honey, Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of, and both Fallout and Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. According to PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman, “Though many states have passed laws to facilitate book bans, UT is the 1st to outlaw a list of books.”

The law that prompted this latest round of book banning is a little tricky. It stems from a bill passed by the state earlier this year regarding the “evaluation of instructional material to identify and remove pornographic or indecent material.” Under the law, every school district and charter has to report to the Utah State Board of Education when it removes a title with “objective sensitive material” from its libraries. If the same title is removed in three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools), the title then gets banned statewide. The statewide ban can be overturned if “three or more” USBE leaders put a title on a board meeting agenda for members to vote on the matter. If the USBE doesn’t vote to overturn within 30 days of the initial ban, it becomes permanent. More titles may continue to be added to the list over time. 

Maas’ books have become a phenomenon in recent years (thanks in part to “BookTok”), spearheading a spike in popularity for the “romantasy” genre. Though her books were initially shelved as Young Adult fiction, later entries with more explicit sexual content have been categorized as “New Adult” (typically similar in style but more mature in content than Young Adult, but separate from Literary Fiction). Other books on the list deal with subject matter like drugs, alcohol, addiction, abortion, and sexuality, such as Blume’s seminal novel Forever…. 

Last year, Blume recalled how book banning fell off after a spike in the 1980s. “Now it is back, it is back much worse—this is in America, it is back so much worse than it was in the 80s. Because it’s become political,” she observed. Blume’s work has frequently been a target for book banning due to her refreshingly honest depictions of girlhood, puberty, sexuality, and spirituality. She questioned the purpose behind banning: to “Protect [kids] from talking about things? Protect them from knowing about things?” the author wondered. “Because even if they don’t let them read books, their bodies are still going to change and their feelings about their bodies are going to change. And you can’t control that. They have to be able to read, to question.”