1938 - Nazis Have banned all books that don't promote their toxic ideology.
The country's youths were instructed on what to believe by the murderous regime's purge of truth.
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America's younger generation is fighting back against book bans by conservatives.
One of the positive effects from the draconian ban on truth is children of all ages are reading more books voluntarily. They clearly see the banning efforts as wrong.
So, youth groups are pushing back with Banned Books Book Clubs.
One of their first picks was "The Hate U Give," by Angie Thomas (photo above).
The book has been around for a while and it reflects a teenage experience and relationship to police brutality, which has been a strong conversation the past couple of years.
State and local conservative officials have gone after titles and broad categories of books that deal with race, gender or sexuality in recent months.
There's been numerous attempts to remove specific titles from library shelves and classrooms. Not all of them were successful, but their efforts have stirred the interest of young readers nationwide.
That interest was channeled into Banned Books Book Club, a project from the company Reclamation Ventures, which also runs the newsletter Anti-Racism Daily.
Clubs are springing up everywhere in retaliation of the conservative attacks on what can - and can't - be read in our schools.
"Obviously this whole idea of taking away books that they wanted to read or that they thought they should read sparked a nerve in them," said Mary Jo Podgurski, an educator at the Common Ground Teen Center in Washington, Pennsylvania in a recent interview with Harmeet Kaur of CNN.
Facts We Should All Know
The American Library Association recorded 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, the most since the organization began tracking those attempts in 2000.
While that might seem low overall considering the approximately 99,000 K-12 public schools in the US, the ALA says it's likely an extreme undercount.
With midterms rolling up this November Republicans are selling false narratives about books and teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) which of course any informed person knows doesn't exist in grades K-12. Very few colleges have the subject on their curriculums, unless their law colleges.
Throw in a few crazed conspiracies and it's apparent the party of Trump is pumping out propaganda to its base with increased vigor in the last six months.
Kudos to our children for forming and attending Banned Books Book Club meetings to see what the conservatives are trying to hide from them.