2 weeks Ago
THAT LIBRARIAN: The Fight Against Book Banning in America . By Amanda Jones. Bloomsburg.
288 pages. $29.99.
Amanda Jones has far more than earned the “Moxie” tattoo on her left wrist. A school librarian and former English teacher at Live Oak Middle School, her alma mater in Livingston Parish, La., Jones has faithfully served her hometown community as a professional educator for more than 20 years.
Her awards and achievements are extraordinary: 2019 Louisiana Middle School Teacher of the Year, 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year, 2021 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, 2021 School Library Journal Librarian of the Year, 2022-23 president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, to name just a few. But none of those accolades and accomplishments protected her from vilification and even death threats after she spoke at a public library meeting in July 2022 in defense of maintaining access for young readers to books with LGBTQ content. Through social media persecution and provocation, Jones was labeled a groomer, pedophile and pornography-pusher.
Boldly, she sued two of her most vocal antagonists for defamation of character — but lost her lawsuit, at least for now. By turns heartrending and heartening, “That Librarian,” Jones’s forthright memoir of her experiences, is at once a devastatingly candid journey through the physical, mental and emotional anguish of the assaults on her character and simultaneously an emboldening narrative of perseverance, community-building, and tenacious advocacy in defense of the ideals of democracy inherent in the right to read freely. As one would expect from an accomplished librarian, Jones has well documented the entirety of her experience, and she freely shares quotations, screenshots, photos and citations as she names names and immerses readers deeply into the traumatic chronology of events which unfolded online and her community.
As she titles one chapter, “Hell hath no fury like a librarian scorned.” In gripping detail, she recalls the effects on her husband and daughter, her relationships with coworkers and parents in her school, the toll on friendships, and her pathways into therapy and legal representation. Examples of Jones’ personal faith are powerfully presented as foundational to her sense of self and her duty to others.
Raised in a conservative family, Jones is a lifelong member of Amite Baptist Church (founded in the 1840s), and she ably quotes scripture as rebuttals to the Christian nationalist attacks levelled against her. While she credits her spiritual faith as a source of strength, it is also her deeply humanistic faith which fortifies her story and storytelling. Jones writes confessionally of her own awakenings to a broader, more sympathetic appreciation of the world beyond her no-stoplight hometown through access to books, libraries and librarians — from her high school librarian introducing her to Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” to reading “Marley Dias Gets It Done and So Can You” after first seeing the inspiring teenaged author on a talk show to realizing a greater need for representation in her reading and teaching life after an overtly inclusive author dinner at an American Library Association (ALA) conference.
She also catalogs with both reverence and respect the friends, family, fellow advocates, writers, librarians and organizational leaders who have rallied to her support and defense—a who’s who of champions for literacy and intellectual freedom, including Oprah Winfrey, Kwame Alexander, and EveryLibrary founder John Chrastka. Parallel to her own history, Jones shares representative stories from fellow librarians across the country who also have become victims in an ongoing culture war carried out by book-banning political extremists. Among the most troubling is an account from an unnamed South Carolina school librarian who had been targeted by both frequent FOIA intimidation tactics and a weaponized student under directives from harassing parents to surveil and bait the librarian.
“That Librarian” is certain to open the eyes and hearts of readers unsure or underinformed about the current state of book bans in the U.S. As Jones recounts, according to cases documented by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, 2,571 individual books were challenged nationwide in 2022, a 38 percent increase from the previous year — with 90 percent of the challenges targeting multiple books at once and 40 percent of cases challenging more than 100 books at a time.
(According to up-to-date ALA statics, 4,240 individual titles were challenged in 2023, a 65 percent rise from 2022. Of those, 47 percent are books representing the voices and experiences of historically marginalized communities.) Jones’s work also speaks volumes about why diverse literature is worth defending, as she recalls the scholarship of Dr.
Rudine Sims Bishop, who highlighted the significance of valuing books as windows in lives wholly different than our own, mirrors reflecting vital representations of diverse readerships and sliding glass doors through which we might be transformed in the immersive act of reading. Moreover, Jones advocates impactfully for listening as an essential act of empathy, and for listening to students in particular on an issue which impacts them most directly, while also modeling the virtues of positivity and good democratic citizenship: “We should listen to the kids. .
.. They want a safe place to learn, to be included; they need adults to look up to; and we should set a positive example for them.
” In the closing chapters, Jones offers detailed, pragmatic advice for fellow librarians and advocates, as well as for those eager to educate themselves and act in defense of equitable access for all to essential reading materials. To respond to the organized efforts of book banners, Jones recommends community- and coalition-building as well. She is now the founding executive director of a truly grassroots organization, the Livingston Parish Library Alliance, as well as a founding member of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship.
She has also been known to wear a tee-shirt supporting the South Carolina-based DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization in nationally live-streamed interviews. Of her detractors, Jones says, “They wanted to silence me, which cemented my will to speak my truth. These groups operate by instilling fear so that no one will challenge them, and I know it was important to take a stand.
” Given her seemingly endless schedule of high-profile media interviews and public appearances following the publication of her memoir, it is abundantly clear that no one will be silencing “that librarian” with the moxie tattoo any time soon. All those who treasure the freedom the read and the promise of democracy have much to be grateful for that Amanda Jones has accepted this calling with hard-won aplomb, grace and optimism — and that she has authored such an authentic and galvanizing autobiography. Sign up for the Charleston Hot Sheet Get a weekly list of tips on pop-ups, last minute tickets and little-known experiences hand-selected by our newsroom in your inbox each Thursday.
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