Book bans took a frightening turn last month when the Alabama House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to criminalize librarians who displayed books others found offensive, particularly those involving sexuality and gender. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed in the Alabama Senate, which declined to pass the same bill, and it didn’t become law.
But the effort was appalling even by the standards of redder-than-red Alabama, where I live. If the Senate had passed the house bill, librarians could have faced a $10,000 fine and a month in a county jail for the first offense and a much longer prison term for the second. And because the nation as a whole is increasingly taking its cues from the South, such attempts could spread to other states.
I defend librarians and write about why they shouldn’t go to jail for the books they select in my latest post at @Medium. Let’s hope such misguided efforts stop at the state borders.
One-Minute Book Reviews 
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