November 29, 2025 • 32 mins
Amanda Jones has been an educator for 22 years and is the President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians. She was the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year, 2021 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, and 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year. She co-founded the Livingston Parish Library Alliance to defeat censorship attempts in her community. She is the author of the memoir, "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good News for Lefties and America. Thanks so much for
listening to this edition of Good News for Lefties Deep Dive.
I'm your host, Bewolf Rockland. A number of the stories
that we have talked about in the last year have
involved book bands or the attempts to ban books, especially
(00:29):
at the school level. And of course we've talked a
lot to the good folks at the band Camp podcast.
Many of the stories we've we've chatted with them about here,
and I thought it was about time to devil a
little deeper on our own, and I think we have
a very good conversation for you today with Amanda Jones.
(00:53):
She is the author of the memoir That Librarian, The
Fight against Book Banning in America. She's an educator for
twenty two years and is the president of the Louisiana
Association School Libraries. Amanda Jones, thank you so much for
being here today.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Tell me what made you want to become a librarian
and an educator? What started you down this path to
begin with?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, I think some things you're just born knowing that
this is what you're meant to do, and so I Yeah,
when I was little, I used to play school. Yeah
my mom was a teacher, but yeah I was. I
went to college to become a teacher, and then while
I was there, I realized that specifically I wanted to
be a school librarian, a middle school librarian. And it
(01:44):
was I'll credit two different professors I had in college
with my literature classes that I had taken, just reignited
that passion that I had growing up with reading that
I had kind of lost. You know, in college you
get jobs in year studying and you get you know,
you don't read as much. But they renoed that passion.
And so now I'm in my twenty fifth year this year.
(02:06):
So I don't think I have the best job in
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's awesome. That's awesome. And then do I understand correctly
that you are the school library and at the middle
school where you actually went is a young person, Yes,
it's been.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My entire twenty five years has been at the same school.
And it's the same school I attended as a child,
my husband attended, my daughter attended, and I have a
bunch of grand students this year which are of kids
that I taught, and several coworkers are former students of
my life.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's so cool. That's so cool. So it comes from
your family since since your mom was a teacher, and
it's come together so that you know, now generations of students.
It's just wonderful. I'm so, I'm curticled to you that
that's like a part of your community and a part
of your life in such a in such a deep way.
(02:55):
So this this topic is really really meaningful to you,
Like this isn't just a political stance. This is like
something that affects you deeply and the people that you
know in generations of people that you know directly.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Absolutely, which is why it's so near and dear to
my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So how did this begin to come up with? Was
the topic of taking certain books off the shelf an
issue since the beginning of when you became a school librarian,
or this something that you've seen increase in frequency, the
desire to do this in just recent years.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well, it's cyclical, it goes and like it ebbs and flows.
And so when I first started back in two thousand
and one, two thousand and two was when there was
some uproar about Harry Potter books, right, and so you
know we had Yeah, it was just a touch of
a censorship with the Harry Potter books. But back then
(03:56):
it was you know, Okay, a parent doesn't like this book, Okay,
your kid doesn't check it out. That's fine, everything's great.
But now what we're seeing, which is not just what
I'm seeing, but what my brains are seeing all across
the country, is now, if someone a parent or someone
doesn't like a book, not only you must remove it
from the shelf, but if you even give any kind
(04:18):
of stance against that parent or that patron in a
public library, they will try to destroy your life. So
that is absolutely something completely new, and I'm not being hyperbolic.
They literally will try to get you fired and destroy
your life if you push back against book bands.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, and they have the mechanisms to facilitate that, their
regular requests to take certain books off shelves. They have
like lists that circulate and they just kind of issue
these automatic requests to get them taken off. Whether there's
been any actual complaint about it, is that the case.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, that's the case.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I want to say, I'm a parent myself, so I
believe in parental rights, and I believe in that it
is any parents right to question a book in their
child's school library or and a public library. But these
are not actual, real fears that parents are having. They're
getting that are getting that they're getting organically. I'm always
(05:22):
say that they're finding lists on different hate groups, different
moms for liberty.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Those types of groups.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, and you'll see that seventy two percent of the books,
this is reported by American Library Association last year, seventy
two percent of the books that were challenged were by
political action groups. So these aren't like the average parent.
If a parent at my school came to talk to
me about a book, that's one thing. But we're seeing
dark money nonprofits through hundreds of titles that librarians and
(05:56):
demand they be removed immediately without going through any process
or background or screening or anything.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
And there's a real difference there too, because if a
parent that is part of your community, that you know
comes to you and has an honest conversation about something,
then you can talk about that and talk about what
the best strategy is and how to deal with it.
But you can't really do that when people are just
sending you lists that go around. How often does the
(06:25):
former happen as opposed to the latter, at least in
your experience.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, so the book beinging controversy.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
My town actually is through a public library, so I
got targeted and harassed speaking out for my public library
at my school library. No, I've in the twenty five
years i've been there, maybe a handful of parents have
contacted me, and I help to them and we dealt
with it one on one, you know, But which is
(06:56):
what I'm there to do. I'm there to work with
the parents, absolutely, the parents and the students. But I
it's not real books that are what they're you know,
what they're What these people do, what these political action
groups and these extremist groups do, is they they take
pages of books out of context and they post them
in local social media groups to rile everybody up. And
(07:20):
when you get down to it, you actually look at
the books. Most of these books are not even in
children's sections in public libraries, and they're also not in
school libraries.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So I mean, like, for.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Instance, my my book my school is fifth and sixth grade,
so I wouldn't have the book Gender Queer by my
Kobe in my library because it's not professionally reviewed for
the age group of my students. I think it's a
great book, you know, But I've had someone that you
need to remove gender queer from or library. I'm like,
it's not even in my library because I'm that book
(07:55):
is rated for, you know, older teens, and that's not
in our library. But I've had people say she's giving
kids ginger Cauer and books that are age and appropriate,
and I'm not.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We'll be right back with more. This is good news
for lefties. Deep dive. I'm be Awolf Frockland. Thanks for
sticking around. We're back with more on this good news
for lefties. Deep dive. I'm be Awolf Frocklin. I should
just give you a little bit of my background because
I grew up in a in a very liberal school
system in Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco,
(08:34):
in a very conservative family. My dad asked to have
me removed from the study of particular books in a class,
and in retrospect, it would have been much better if
he had not done that. But now once did he
ask like for any book to be removed from the
from the school library at all. He didn't want to.
(08:55):
He didn't want to that. He was just concerncerned about
me and that's it's something on an on a different level.
So this is a little personal to me because I
really feel like, within the limits of age appropriateness, you
should pretty much be able to have a very wide
range of things for young people to read. What happened
(09:16):
with regard to your local public library and how did
that become a larger issue?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So our libraries in Louisiana have been under attack from
an extremist group in Lafayette Parish because we're parish is
in Louisiana and that counties, and they had cost a
neighboring parish three million dollars in funding for their public library.
So when I saw members of that group starting to
post pages of a book out of context in my
(09:46):
local community that they don't live and work in, it
raised some eyebrows. And I saw that the agenda for
the upcoming they were saying, everybody needs to get down
to the library board meeting, and kind of like with
social media posts, that reminded me of like with pitchforks,
like we've got to get down there and kill the beast.
And I get there to the public library meeting and
(10:10):
at the time, no books were nobody was discussing you know,
I didn't go there to talk about a particular book.
I went to talk about policies and procedures. But over
the course of the meeting, one of the ladies on
the library board passed around a list, and later I
saw the list and realized it's all books that were
written by the LGBTQ plus community or with characters of it. Yeah,
(10:33):
and she will tell you that these books are sexually explicit.
When was the children I don't remember the title, but
when was a children's book picture book that had nothing
sexual in it?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so I just went and spoke and said.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Our libraries are for everyone, and everybody deserves to see
themselves represented on the shelves. Everybody in our community pays taxes.
It's a public library, and it was my public library.
I've been a library card horse since I was five
and I'm forty seven now. And so for these outside people,
extremists that don't live or work, to come into our
community telling us what we can and cannot have in
the public library was ridiculous to me. And so and
(11:09):
everybody else said the same thing pretty much as I did,
except for two people. One was someone from the extremist
group and one was a legitimate It was a grandmother
who was legitimately concerned, and I don't fault her for that.
But I just went and spoke, and after I spoke
at the public library, didn't say anything outlandish. I was
targeted and harassed by two men in particular, who spread
(11:31):
means about me around the community, saying that I advocate
the teaching of anal sex to eleven year olds and
then I get pornography and erotica to six year olds,
which has nothing to do. First of all, I don't
do that, and second of all, I didn't say anything
remotely like that. But it's just what people do in
this current climate, where if you object to what they
want to do to our libraries, they will personally vilify you.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So they were trying to destroy your life and destroy
your career by putting out complete lies about you because
you stood up for a basic community value that everybody
in the community pays taxes to have a library should
see themselves represented in that library.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I you know, I kept saying when I spoke
that first time, I kept saying, you know, I hope
my fears are unfounded, and I hope you're not trying
to censor books, and I was I thought it was
very nice. So it wasn't the response that I received,
you know, because it's been three and a half years
and they're still trying to destroy my life. One of
(12:36):
the men I've settled. I ended up filing a lawsuit
against the two men, and I settled with one man,
but the other one has been he posts he has
pictures of me on his desk that he posts on
the internet. He posts my home address. It's very odd.
It's like, really, he's trying to get me fired on multiplications.
It's very very odd behavior.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Odd and reprehensible. Yeah, really really scared. And yet and
yet you've continued, You've continued to speak out, You've continued
to do your job. How do you find that the
community that you know and work with is reacting to
(13:15):
these same issues. From what you described at that one meeting,
it sounds like generally they were pretty supportive once this
started to happen. How did they respond?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Generally, They were pretty supportive at first until I got targeted,
and then no one wanted to defend me because people
that were trying to defend me were being targeted and
harassed as well. So all everyone kind of just left
me be brought to the slaughter by these two men
in my community, and it was very upsetting to me,
(13:48):
and you know, to see people you know in your
whole life not defending you or even joining in. At
some point, that was the first year I ended up
founding a Library Alliance to defend our public library, and
we have hundreds of supporters. Now I would say that
the climate has shifted the people. At first, when they
(14:10):
target harassed me and were saying I wanted these things
to give to children, there was a really big push
in our community to destroy the library, to stop the funding,
to fire the directors, which they were successful at. And
this narrative that our public library was giving porn to
kids kind of overtook the community for a while though
(14:32):
to everyone realized, especially with the help of the Library Alliance,
all of us working at the Library Alliance, we got
the word out. I'm like, no, that's not what's happening.
Here's the truth, and we would showcase, you know, what
was really happening with screenshots and video and audio and
things that people were saying, until everyone started to believe us.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And so now I'd say that it's back.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The community is back to supporting the library, but at
what cost? Because we lost two library directors, We've had
thirty three percent of our employees have left this past
year because they're tired of being targeted and harassed. You know,
it's it takes its toll in a community.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It almost sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone
or something like that. Something in the era or just
after the era of the Red Scare, the McCarthy era.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It's exactly like that.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, how are you able to do your job under
those circumstances? What has made you hold on? Because that's
got to be sometimes terrifying to live like that and
it continues to this day. How do you decide to
keep doing that? What keeps you going? Well?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I initially.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Because I've gotten death threats and you know, it's not
a month goes by without someone trying to get fired.
But I'm not doing anything wrong, so that that keeps
me going.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
The kids. I just love the kids.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I love seeing them light up when the book they
want on hold is come in, or you know, they
ask me for a new book, or I just I
love sharing the love of reading with the kids and
helping them find books and I just think I was
born to do this job, and no one's going to
read me out of it, you know. And it also
(16:20):
something that really stuck with me is that I read
a study in twenty twenty three from the Human Rights
Coalition that said that, you know, there's so many percentage
of kids that feel unsafe at school, but nine out
of ten in this study reported feeling safe in the
school library. And so for me, when we're a small town,
two red lights, like every kid in my community will
(16:42):
have me for a librarian in fifth and sixth grade.
That's a huge responsibility to me to make sure that
for at least two years they feel safe and seen
and loved and represented in our school libraries. Not that
they aren't in their other years, because we have great
librarians in our system. But I and I feel very
strongly about this is my community and I'm not going
to leave. And I was born and here, raised here,
and I raised my child here, and I'm this is
(17:03):
my home and so I think back to I also,
I heard author Samera Ahmed say that we should use
our power and privilege for purpose and so and I
have it tattooed on my wrist.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I got to remind me that I should.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I do have power and privilege, and I should use
it for a purpose. And in twenty twenty one, I
was named the School Library Journal my Brain of the Year,
which is a national award, and you're given a platform
with something like that. And so if I was to
not speak out about one of the greatest threats to
our libraries right now, that's the waste of a platform.
(17:38):
So I'm going to make sure I use my privilege
and my platform and get the word out about what's
happening to our libraries before they're all destroyed.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Let's pause. We'll be back in just a moment. This
is good news, deep dive. I'm Beowulf Rocklin. Now back
to our guest. This is good news, deep dive. I
always loved going to my local public libry, especially as
a kid. I mean it was I didn't feel like
I usually had a whole lot of time to explore
(18:07):
my my my school libraries. But I always loved going
to Like the public library was one of these like
old Carnegie buildings that was built in in the nineteen
twenties and it's still there today. And I loved, you know,
walking into town and going there. You know, when I
(18:28):
was you know, ten, twelve, even you know, fourteen years old,
you know, reading reading books and you know, browsing through
and reading magazines and things like that, and it was
always a wonderful, like quiet, peaceful place where I could
I could focus on things and I would be able
to access And this was you know, before the Internet.
(18:50):
So I I mean, there's still many things that you
can't access well on the Internet because they're behind these walls.
But I love being able to browse at will, and
you know, just grab a book off the shelf and
see something interesting and peruse it and you know, or
look at an encyclopedia or something like that and dig
(19:12):
into it and just sit and read and kind of
either let my mind wander or dive deep into something.
I always loved the fact that that was there. So
libraries have been very important to me in my life.
And it seems like there's some people who not only
want to very carefully curate libraries in general by their
(19:37):
particular political point of view, but they wouldn't care if
libraries weren't there at all. And I think that would
be terribly destructive, because I think they are an important
place for young people to be while they're trying to
figure out who they are and what direction they want
(19:59):
to go in, and just an unfiltered place for fore
knowledge that doesn't come from a particular perspective. And I
think those are so critical. I think if we lose that,
if we lose those physical locations, we're losing something tremendous.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Absolutely, And I see people sometimes comment, oh, libraries are
a thing of the past.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Kids don't read. That is so false.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
The Smithsonian I think the Smithsonian magazine did a study.
I'm big into studies, as you can tell, studies and quotes,
but Smithsonian Magazine did a study a few years back
and said that they measured the amount of people who
visited public libraries versus theaters, and more people visited theaters
by like double And so I mean the library is
(20:50):
not sorry, not theater's librarries. And so you think about
what libraries offer. Not only do they offer the books,
but video games and movies, and yeah, our library offers.
You can get cultural passes to museums, you can check
out telescopes, cake pans, and we even have because our
community is we don't We're not the richest community, and
(21:13):
so they even have celebration kits. If you can't afford
birthday decorations or anniversary decorations, you can go check them
out from the library and just return them later.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And so I think that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Is the resources. The physical resources are great, but also
they offer English as a second language, courses, taxes, how
to do your taxes, how to get a job, resumes,
and even quilting, quilting and embroidery and book clubs. And
our libraries are hubs. They're always busy, always busy. You
will never go in there. It's not quite anymore a hub.
(21:48):
It's not loud, it's not you know, but it's you
can tell that there's learning and community happening every time
you enter the library. And so these people that want
to take it away, you know, even one of the
men that has harassed me post on the internet, why
I don't really care what books they have in there.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I just want to defund it, like like, why why
are you doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Why would they want to eliminate that anyone. I guess
maybe they just never had the opportunity to be there,
or they had a bad experience. I can't imagine that.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Though taxes, there's an anti tax movie.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I guess so, but it ends up being so beneficial.
I mean, I mean, it's so little money for such
a wonderful return on your investment. Just as a moral thing,
you should have a space where anybody can come in
a community to read and learn and have that space.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And even if you don't, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
No, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. Please.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I was to say, even if you don't use
it personally, what an excellent library system does for your
community as far as property values and things like that,
you should care even if you don't use it personally.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's a good thing for people across the age spectrum
to have. And I just it's difficult for me to
put myself in the shoes of someone who wouldn't want
libraries at all. And like, you know, I think there's
good things about the Internet, but it's also kind of
(23:18):
crazy making to me. And I understand. The libraries are busier,
but they allow you to sit and focus, and there
are corners of libraries where you can have that, and
there's so few other spaces like that. And the internet
is a very noisy place and it doesn't let you
(23:42):
sit on one thing for long and libraries do that,
and that should apply across all sorts of ideas, all
aspects of human life which exist, and you should have
a place to be able to find more about that.
So I yeah, I just it's difficult for me to
(24:05):
put myself in the shoes of someone who wouldn't want
libraries at all and ord to also, like, not want
a particular political perspective. I think, I think that's just dangerous.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
They they want to curate the collection in the library
right now. Well, that's because the person that they voted
for is in charge. But if you switch, you know,
we don't change libraries every time we elect a new president.
Librarries should represent everybody in the community, regardless of who's
in charge of the you know, government at the time.
(24:40):
And so I always tell people, you know, be careful
what you wish for, because we're the shoe and the
other foot, and the we were to elect someone different
in the coming years, they wouldn't like it if the library,
you know, let's take out this for you know, your beliefs,
and let's take ask for And so it's if you
don't like something, just talk. No one's forcing you to
check out a book in the library.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, grab what you want.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, it's like, yeah, look at a different shelf. There's
something that you will like. There's a there's a different perspective.
That's the idea of free speech, that you can that
you can have something and find something that that that
you will resonate in it, and and and and dig
into that more deeply and and find out if if
that is for you. And I think that is so important.
(25:26):
What what have you? You must have taken some lessons
from what you have gone through. And it has not
been easy because this is a national fight. It happens
in a lot of different I think it happens in
every state, and a lot of different counties and a
lot of different school districts. What do you advise to
(25:50):
librarians and people who are trying to prevent books from
being banned when this occurs where they live.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Well, it's very demoralizing when you are the one that's
being targeted for protecting libraries. I always tell people, because
I speak to a lot of librarians, I tell them
it's not it's not.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You, it's them. It's not you. But something that I
have noticed.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Is that these people that are attacking libraries, and they
often do it in the name of protecting children, because
they push this false narrative that these kids are going
to walk around the library, They're going to stumble upon
a book and open it up and they might see
a bad word or they might see a sex scene.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
And I'm thinking, no kid is.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Walking around the library hoping to find a book. They
have a phone in their hands, so they can just
take it in if they want to see that.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, but not in.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
This day and age that I mean. I mean, there
were times where, you know, I was interested in looking
up certain books and I can like in the dictionary
to like, you know, but this was like what you know,
thirty thirty years ago, when the internet was just like
a thirty forty years ago. My god, I'm old when
(27:07):
the internet was like not even a thing yet. But
but you know, like you're going to encounter things in
the real world. You can't. You can't protect kids like
from all of the world. And it wouldn't wouldn't it
be better if if they stumbled into, you know, having
forbid a couple of you know, untoward words in a library,
(27:32):
as opposed to never have encountered the concept before when
they run smack into it in the real world.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I would think, so that's my philosophy, But apparently they
don't want their kids to stumble upon a book, and
they don't they're going to make sure that book's not
even there for any kid to stumble upon it, even
for the parents who want their kids to read it.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
But I I tell people, you know, I tell.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Librarians and community members and educators, it's frustrating when these
false nritives are thrown at you, or you're accused of
horrific things, or just for defending a library. But we
have to set a good example for kids, because what
the example that people like Moms for Liberty or these
other groups they all have different names, Awaken Illinois or
(28:18):
whatever concern parents of Connecticut or whatever. They all have
the same thing in common, and that is that they
provide a horrible example of how to behave to call
their children's teachers and librarians, groomers and pedophiles, and to
treat people with such disrespect.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So when that is thrown our way, even.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Though I mean, I don't like it, but I can't
do it back because I do want to set a
good example. I do want to protect the kids, and
so we have to rise above it. As Michelle, as
a former First Lady Michelle Bauma, when they go lo,
you go high, and it sucks to go high, but
for the sake of our kids and the sake of
our libraries, have to and so I always, I always
(29:02):
try to reiterate that when I talk to librarianes, and also,
don't self censor yourself. A lot of legislators and there's
been legislation in numerous states to criminalize librarians, and so
librarians are not ordering the books that they normally would
because they don't want to be harassed.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And we cannot do that.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
We have a code of ethics, we took courses on censorship,
and we know that's wrong, so we cannot do that.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think I applaud you. I mean, that's that's the
right way. I mean, turn the other cheek, and I
think ultimately, perseverance and focus on what your goal is
and what it's important to say while remaining like gentle
(29:49):
and truthful is the right path. And God bless you
for following that. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So it's not easy.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I mean, no, no, it isn't. It isn't we No
I I want to I want to lash out all
the time. I'm trying to spread the good news. But
believe me, like many times I've been tempted to, Wow,
I just want to have read about something. And you know,
occasionally do that on another podcasts, but not this one.
But yeah, I mean you're right, like you want to
(30:22):
like engage and like you know, get get get into it.
But that's that's really not the most productive way, is it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I've been told, like I've had someone approach me in
public and tell me that God's going to wrap a
millstone around my neck and draw me in the pits
of hell. And there were children nearby, and so I
just had to say, you did that make you feel
good to say that to me?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And walk away?
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Because what am I supposed to yell and scream? And
then the kids see this screaming batch of public like that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Is yeah, that makes it worse. Just that escalates it
and makes it worse. And and and you're right, that's
that's the way. Just you know, follow the the the perseverance,
but gentle path.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
And and then you can go to your own house
and then you can take your vision dollars.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Sure, no, after that all bets are off, but you
know when you're when you when you're confronting them.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That's that's the way of it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Amanda Jones, thank you so much for being with us
today again. She's the author of That Librarian, The Fight
against Book Banning in America. Where can we find out
more about you and what you do and get copies
of your book?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I do have a website.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I probably need to update it a little better, but
it's librarian Jones dot com and there's a tab that
says speaking out which I'll tell you everything about my
fight and what's happening. And there's toolkits and resources. And
I'm also on Instagram at that librarian Jones and blue
Sky at librarian Jones dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's where you can find me.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
That's wonderful. Amanda, thanks so much for being with us
today on good news for lefties. All the best and
your your struggles moving forward, and and may you have
may you have kids coming into your library? Who are
the who are the grandchildren of those that you first
went to school with? Hoping for that and the generation.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'm said to thank you for having me all the best.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
M M M
Good News for Lefties and America. Thanks so much for
listening to this edition of Good News for Lefties Deep Dive.
I'm your host, Bewolf Rockland. A number of the stories
that we have talked about in the last year have
involved book bands or the attempts to ban books, especially
(00:29):
at the school level. And of course we've talked a
lot to the good folks at the band Camp podcast.
Many of the stories we've we've chatted with them about here,
and I thought it was about time to devil a
little deeper on our own, and I think we have
a very good conversation for you today with Amanda Jones.
(00:53):
She is the author of the memoir That Librarian, The
Fight against Book Banning in America. She's an educator for
twenty two years and is the president of the Louisiana
Association School Libraries. Amanda Jones, thank you so much for
being here today.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Tell me what made you want to become a librarian
and an educator? What started you down this path to
begin with?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, I think some things you're just born knowing that
this is what you're meant to do, and so I Yeah,
when I was little, I used to play school. Yeah
my mom was a teacher, but yeah I was. I
went to college to become a teacher, and then while
I was there, I realized that specifically I wanted to
be a school librarian, a middle school librarian. And it
(01:44):
was I'll credit two different professors I had in college
with my literature classes that I had taken, just reignited
that passion that I had growing up with reading that
I had kind of lost. You know, in college you
get jobs in year studying and you get you know,
you don't read as much. But they renoed that passion.
And so now I'm in my twenty fifth year this year.
(02:06):
So I don't think I have the best job in
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's awesome. That's awesome. And then do I understand correctly
that you are the school library and at the middle
school where you actually went is a young person, Yes,
it's been.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My entire twenty five years has been at the same school.
And it's the same school I attended as a child,
my husband attended, my daughter attended, and I have a
bunch of grand students this year which are of kids
that I taught, and several coworkers are former students of
my life.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's so cool. That's so cool. So it comes from
your family since since your mom was a teacher, and
it's come together so that you know, now generations of students.
It's just wonderful. I'm so, I'm curticled to you that
that's like a part of your community and a part
of your life in such a in such a deep way.
(02:55):
So this this topic is really really meaningful to you,
Like this isn't just a political stance. This is like
something that affects you deeply and the people that you
know in generations of people that you know directly.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Absolutely, which is why it's so near and dear to
my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So how did this begin to come up with? Was
the topic of taking certain books off the shelf an
issue since the beginning of when you became a school librarian,
or this something that you've seen increase in frequency, the
desire to do this in just recent years.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well, it's cyclical, it goes and like it ebbs and flows.
And so when I first started back in two thousand
and one, two thousand and two was when there was
some uproar about Harry Potter books, right, and so you
know we had Yeah, it was just a touch of
a censorship with the Harry Potter books. But back then
(03:56):
it was you know, Okay, a parent doesn't like this book, Okay,
your kid doesn't check it out. That's fine, everything's great.
But now what we're seeing, which is not just what
I'm seeing, but what my brains are seeing all across
the country, is now, if someone a parent or someone
doesn't like a book, not only you must remove it
from the shelf, but if you even give any kind
(04:18):
of stance against that parent or that patron in a
public library, they will try to destroy your life. So
that is absolutely something completely new, and I'm not being hyperbolic.
They literally will try to get you fired and destroy
your life if you push back against book bands.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, and they have the mechanisms to facilitate that, their
regular requests to take certain books off shelves. They have
like lists that circulate and they just kind of issue
these automatic requests to get them taken off. Whether there's
been any actual complaint about it, is that the case.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, that's the case.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I want to say, I'm a parent myself, so I
believe in parental rights, and I believe in that it
is any parents right to question a book in their
child's school library or and a public library. But these
are not actual, real fears that parents are having. They're
getting that are getting that they're getting organically. I'm always
(05:22):
say that they're finding lists on different hate groups, different
moms for liberty.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Those types of groups.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, and you'll see that seventy two percent of the books,
this is reported by American Library Association last year, seventy
two percent of the books that were challenged were by
political action groups. So these aren't like the average parent.
If a parent at my school came to talk to
me about a book, that's one thing. But we're seeing
dark money nonprofits through hundreds of titles that librarians and
(05:56):
demand they be removed immediately without going through any process
or background or screening or anything.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
And there's a real difference there too, because if a
parent that is part of your community, that you know
comes to you and has an honest conversation about something,
then you can talk about that and talk about what
the best strategy is and how to deal with it.
But you can't really do that when people are just
sending you lists that go around. How often does the
(06:25):
former happen as opposed to the latter, at least in
your experience.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, so the book beinging controversy.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
My town actually is through a public library, so I
got targeted and harassed speaking out for my public library
at my school library. No, I've in the twenty five
years i've been there, maybe a handful of parents have
contacted me, and I help to them and we dealt
with it one on one, you know, But which is
(06:56):
what I'm there to do. I'm there to work with
the parents, absolutely, the parents and the students. But I
it's not real books that are what they're you know,
what they're What these people do, what these political action
groups and these extremist groups do, is they they take
pages of books out of context and they post them
in local social media groups to rile everybody up. And
(07:20):
when you get down to it, you actually look at
the books. Most of these books are not even in
children's sections in public libraries, and they're also not in
school libraries.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So I mean, like, for.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Instance, my my book my school is fifth and sixth grade,
so I wouldn't have the book Gender Queer by my
Kobe in my library because it's not professionally reviewed for
the age group of my students. I think it's a
great book, you know, But I've had someone that you
need to remove gender queer from or library. I'm like,
it's not even in my library because I'm that book
(07:55):
is rated for, you know, older teens, and that's not
in our library. But I've had people say she's giving
kids ginger Cauer and books that are age and appropriate,
and I'm not.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We'll be right back with more. This is good news
for lefties. Deep dive. I'm be Awolf Frockland. Thanks for
sticking around. We're back with more on this good news
for lefties. Deep dive. I'm be Awolf Frocklin. I should
just give you a little bit of my background because
I grew up in a in a very liberal school
system in Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco,
(08:34):
in a very conservative family. My dad asked to have
me removed from the study of particular books in a class,
and in retrospect, it would have been much better if
he had not done that. But now once did he
ask like for any book to be removed from the
from the school library at all. He didn't want to.
(08:55):
He didn't want to that. He was just concerncerned about
me and that's it's something on an on a different level.
So this is a little personal to me because I
really feel like, within the limits of age appropriateness, you
should pretty much be able to have a very wide
range of things for young people to read. What happened
(09:16):
with regard to your local public library and how did
that become a larger issue?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So our libraries in Louisiana have been under attack from
an extremist group in Lafayette Parish because we're parish is
in Louisiana and that counties, and they had cost a
neighboring parish three million dollars in funding for their public library.
So when I saw members of that group starting to
post pages of a book out of context in my
(09:46):
local community that they don't live and work in, it
raised some eyebrows. And I saw that the agenda for
the upcoming they were saying, everybody needs to get down
to the library board meeting, and kind of like with
social media posts, that reminded me of like with pitchforks,
like we've got to get down there and kill the beast.
And I get there to the public library meeting and
(10:10):
at the time, no books were nobody was discussing you know,
I didn't go there to talk about a particular book.
I went to talk about policies and procedures. But over
the course of the meeting, one of the ladies on
the library board passed around a list, and later I
saw the list and realized it's all books that were
written by the LGBTQ plus community or with characters of it. Yeah,
(10:33):
and she will tell you that these books are sexually explicit.
When was the children I don't remember the title, but
when was a children's book picture book that had nothing
sexual in it?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so I just went and spoke and said.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Our libraries are for everyone, and everybody deserves to see
themselves represented on the shelves. Everybody in our community pays taxes.
It's a public library, and it was my public library.
I've been a library card horse since I was five
and I'm forty seven now. And so for these outside people,
extremists that don't live or work, to come into our
community telling us what we can and cannot have in
the public library was ridiculous to me. And so and
(11:09):
everybody else said the same thing pretty much as I did,
except for two people. One was someone from the extremist
group and one was a legitimate It was a grandmother
who was legitimately concerned, and I don't fault her for that.
But I just went and spoke, and after I spoke
at the public library, didn't say anything outlandish. I was
targeted and harassed by two men in particular, who spread
(11:31):
means about me around the community, saying that I advocate
the teaching of anal sex to eleven year olds and
then I get pornography and erotica to six year olds,
which has nothing to do. First of all, I don't
do that, and second of all, I didn't say anything
remotely like that. But it's just what people do in
this current climate, where if you object to what they
want to do to our libraries, they will personally vilify you.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So they were trying to destroy your life and destroy
your career by putting out complete lies about you because
you stood up for a basic community value that everybody
in the community pays taxes to have a library should
see themselves represented in that library.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I you know, I kept saying when I spoke
that first time, I kept saying, you know, I hope
my fears are unfounded, and I hope you're not trying
to censor books, and I was I thought it was
very nice. So it wasn't the response that I received,
you know, because it's been three and a half years
and they're still trying to destroy my life. One of
(12:36):
the men I've settled. I ended up filing a lawsuit
against the two men, and I settled with one man,
but the other one has been he posts he has
pictures of me on his desk that he posts on
the internet. He posts my home address. It's very odd.
It's like, really, he's trying to get me fired on multiplications.
It's very very odd behavior.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Odd and reprehensible. Yeah, really really scared. And yet and
yet you've continued, You've continued to speak out, You've continued
to do your job. How do you find that the
community that you know and work with is reacting to
(13:15):
these same issues. From what you described at that one meeting,
it sounds like generally they were pretty supportive once this
started to happen. How did they respond?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Generally, They were pretty supportive at first until I got targeted,
and then no one wanted to defend me because people
that were trying to defend me were being targeted and
harassed as well. So all everyone kind of just left
me be brought to the slaughter by these two men
in my community, and it was very upsetting to me,
(13:48):
and you know, to see people you know in your
whole life not defending you or even joining in. At
some point, that was the first year I ended up
founding a Library Alliance to defend our public library, and
we have hundreds of supporters. Now I would say that
the climate has shifted the people. At first, when they
(14:10):
target harassed me and were saying I wanted these things
to give to children, there was a really big push
in our community to destroy the library, to stop the funding,
to fire the directors, which they were successful at. And
this narrative that our public library was giving porn to
kids kind of overtook the community for a while though
(14:32):
to everyone realized, especially with the help of the Library Alliance,
all of us working at the Library Alliance, we got
the word out. I'm like, no, that's not what's happening.
Here's the truth, and we would showcase, you know, what
was really happening with screenshots and video and audio and
things that people were saying, until everyone started to believe us.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And so now I'd say that it's back.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The community is back to supporting the library, but at
what cost? Because we lost two library directors, We've had
thirty three percent of our employees have left this past
year because they're tired of being targeted and harassed. You know,
it's it takes its toll in a community.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It almost sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone
or something like that. Something in the era or just
after the era of the Red Scare, the McCarthy era.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It's exactly like that.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, how are you able to do your job under
those circumstances? What has made you hold on? Because that's
got to be sometimes terrifying to live like that and
it continues to this day. How do you decide to
keep doing that? What keeps you going? Well?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I initially.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Because I've gotten death threats and you know, it's not
a month goes by without someone trying to get fired.
But I'm not doing anything wrong, so that that keeps
me going.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
The kids. I just love the kids.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I love seeing them light up when the book they
want on hold is come in, or you know, they
ask me for a new book, or I just I
love sharing the love of reading with the kids and
helping them find books and I just think I was
born to do this job, and no one's going to
read me out of it, you know. And it also
(16:20):
something that really stuck with me is that I read
a study in twenty twenty three from the Human Rights
Coalition that said that, you know, there's so many percentage
of kids that feel unsafe at school, but nine out
of ten in this study reported feeling safe in the
school library. And so for me, when we're a small town,
two red lights, like every kid in my community will
(16:42):
have me for a librarian in fifth and sixth grade.
That's a huge responsibility to me to make sure that
for at least two years they feel safe and seen
and loved and represented in our school libraries. Not that
they aren't in their other years, because we have great
librarians in our system. But I and I feel very
strongly about this is my community and I'm not going
to leave. And I was born and here, raised here,
and I raised my child here, and I'm this is
(17:03):
my home and so I think back to I also,
I heard author Samera Ahmed say that we should use
our power and privilege for purpose and so and I
have it tattooed on my wrist.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I got to remind me that I should.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I do have power and privilege, and I should use
it for a purpose. And in twenty twenty one, I
was named the School Library Journal my Brain of the Year,
which is a national award, and you're given a platform
with something like that. And so if I was to
not speak out about one of the greatest threats to
our libraries right now, that's the waste of a platform.
(17:38):
So I'm going to make sure I use my privilege
and my platform and get the word out about what's
happening to our libraries before they're all destroyed.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Let's pause. We'll be back in just a moment. This
is good news, deep dive. I'm Beowulf Rocklin. Now back
to our guest. This is good news, deep dive. I
always loved going to my local public libry, especially as
a kid. I mean it was I didn't feel like
I usually had a whole lot of time to explore
(18:07):
my my my school libraries. But I always loved going
to Like the public library was one of these like
old Carnegie buildings that was built in in the nineteen
twenties and it's still there today. And I loved, you know,
walking into town and going there. You know, when I
(18:28):
was you know, ten, twelve, even you know, fourteen years old,
you know, reading reading books and you know, browsing through
and reading magazines and things like that, and it was
always a wonderful, like quiet, peaceful place where I could
I could focus on things and I would be able
to access And this was you know, before the Internet.
(18:50):
So I I mean, there's still many things that you
can't access well on the Internet because they're behind these walls.
But I love being able to browse at will, and
you know, just grab a book off the shelf and
see something interesting and peruse it and you know, or
look at an encyclopedia or something like that and dig
(19:12):
into it and just sit and read and kind of
either let my mind wander or dive deep into something.
I always loved the fact that that was there. So
libraries have been very important to me in my life.
And it seems like there's some people who not only
want to very carefully curate libraries in general by their
(19:37):
particular political point of view, but they wouldn't care if
libraries weren't there at all. And I think that would
be terribly destructive, because I think they are an important
place for young people to be while they're trying to
figure out who they are and what direction they want
(19:59):
to go in, and just an unfiltered place for fore
knowledge that doesn't come from a particular perspective. And I
think those are so critical. I think if we lose that,
if we lose those physical locations, we're losing something tremendous.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Absolutely, And I see people sometimes comment, oh, libraries are
a thing of the past.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Kids don't read. That is so false.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
The Smithsonian I think the Smithsonian magazine did a study.
I'm big into studies, as you can tell, studies and quotes,
but Smithsonian Magazine did a study a few years back
and said that they measured the amount of people who
visited public libraries versus theaters, and more people visited theaters
by like double And so I mean the library is
(20:50):
not sorry, not theater's librarries. And so you think about
what libraries offer. Not only do they offer the books,
but video games and movies, and yeah, our library offers.
You can get cultural passes to museums, you can check
out telescopes, cake pans, and we even have because our
community is we don't We're not the richest community, and
(21:13):
so they even have celebration kits. If you can't afford
birthday decorations or anniversary decorations, you can go check them
out from the library and just return them later.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And so I think that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Is the resources. The physical resources are great, but also
they offer English as a second language, courses, taxes, how
to do your taxes, how to get a job, resumes,
and even quilting, quilting and embroidery and book clubs. And
our libraries are hubs. They're always busy, always busy. You
will never go in there. It's not quite anymore a hub.
(21:48):
It's not loud, it's not you know, but it's you
can tell that there's learning and community happening every time
you enter the library. And so these people that want
to take it away, you know, even one of the
men that has harassed me post on the internet, why
I don't really care what books they have in there.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I just want to defund it, like like, why why
are you doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Why would they want to eliminate that anyone. I guess
maybe they just never had the opportunity to be there,
or they had a bad experience. I can't imagine that.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Though taxes, there's an anti tax movie.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I guess so, but it ends up being so beneficial.
I mean, I mean, it's so little money for such
a wonderful return on your investment. Just as a moral thing,
you should have a space where anybody can come in
a community to read and learn and have that space.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And even if you don't, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
No, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. Please.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I was to say, even if you don't use
it personally, what an excellent library system does for your
community as far as property values and things like that,
you should care even if you don't use it personally.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's a good thing for people across the age spectrum
to have. And I just it's difficult for me to
put myself in the shoes of someone who wouldn't want
libraries at all. And like, you know, I think there's
good things about the Internet, but it's also kind of
(23:18):
crazy making to me. And I understand. The libraries are busier,
but they allow you to sit and focus, and there
are corners of libraries where you can have that, and
there's so few other spaces like that. And the internet
is a very noisy place and it doesn't let you
(23:42):
sit on one thing for long and libraries do that,
and that should apply across all sorts of ideas, all
aspects of human life which exist, and you should have
a place to be able to find more about that.
So I yeah, I just it's difficult for me to
(24:05):
put myself in the shoes of someone who wouldn't want
libraries at all and ord to also, like, not want
a particular political perspective. I think, I think that's just dangerous.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
They they want to curate the collection in the library
right now. Well, that's because the person that they voted
for is in charge. But if you switch, you know,
we don't change libraries every time we elect a new president.
Librarries should represent everybody in the community, regardless of who's
in charge of the you know, government at the time.
(24:40):
And so I always tell people, you know, be careful
what you wish for, because we're the shoe and the
other foot, and the we were to elect someone different
in the coming years, they wouldn't like it if the library,
you know, let's take out this for you know, your beliefs,
and let's take ask for And so it's if you
don't like something, just talk. No one's forcing you to
check out a book in the library.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, grab what you want.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, it's like, yeah, look at a different shelf. There's
something that you will like. There's a there's a different perspective.
That's the idea of free speech, that you can that
you can have something and find something that that that
you will resonate in it, and and and and dig
into that more deeply and and find out if if
that is for you. And I think that is so important.
(25:26):
What what have you? You must have taken some lessons
from what you have gone through. And it has not
been easy because this is a national fight. It happens
in a lot of different I think it happens in
every state, and a lot of different counties and a
lot of different school districts. What do you advise to
(25:50):
librarians and people who are trying to prevent books from
being banned when this occurs where they live.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Well, it's very demoralizing when you are the one that's
being targeted for protecting libraries. I always tell people, because
I speak to a lot of librarians, I tell them
it's not it's not.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You, it's them. It's not you. But something that I
have noticed.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Is that these people that are attacking libraries, and they
often do it in the name of protecting children, because
they push this false narrative that these kids are going
to walk around the library, They're going to stumble upon
a book and open it up and they might see
a bad word or they might see a sex scene.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
And I'm thinking, no kid is.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Walking around the library hoping to find a book. They
have a phone in their hands, so they can just
take it in if they want to see that.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, but not in.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
This day and age that I mean. I mean, there
were times where, you know, I was interested in looking
up certain books and I can like in the dictionary
to like, you know, but this was like what you know,
thirty thirty years ago, when the internet was just like
a thirty forty years ago. My god, I'm old when
(27:07):
the internet was like not even a thing yet. But
but you know, like you're going to encounter things in
the real world. You can't. You can't protect kids like
from all of the world. And it wouldn't wouldn't it
be better if if they stumbled into, you know, having
forbid a couple of you know, untoward words in a library,
(27:32):
as opposed to never have encountered the concept before when
they run smack into it in the real world.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I would think, so that's my philosophy, But apparently they
don't want their kids to stumble upon a book, and
they don't they're going to make sure that book's not
even there for any kid to stumble upon it, even
for the parents who want their kids to read it.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
But I I tell people, you know, I tell.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Librarians and community members and educators, it's frustrating when these
false nritives are thrown at you, or you're accused of
horrific things, or just for defending a library. But we
have to set a good example for kids, because what
the example that people like Moms for Liberty or these
other groups they all have different names, Awaken Illinois or
(28:18):
whatever concern parents of Connecticut or whatever. They all have
the same thing in common, and that is that they
provide a horrible example of how to behave to call
their children's teachers and librarians, groomers and pedophiles, and to
treat people with such disrespect.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So when that is thrown our way, even.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Though I mean, I don't like it, but I can't
do it back because I do want to set a
good example. I do want to protect the kids, and
so we have to rise above it. As Michelle, as
a former First Lady Michelle Bauma, when they go lo,
you go high, and it sucks to go high, but
for the sake of our kids and the sake of
our libraries, have to and so I always, I always
(29:02):
try to reiterate that when I talk to librarianes, and also,
don't self censor yourself. A lot of legislators and there's
been legislation in numerous states to criminalize librarians, and so
librarians are not ordering the books that they normally would
because they don't want to be harassed.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And we cannot do that.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
We have a code of ethics, we took courses on censorship,
and we know that's wrong, so we cannot do that.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think I applaud you. I mean, that's that's the
right way. I mean, turn the other cheek, and I
think ultimately, perseverance and focus on what your goal is
and what it's important to say while remaining like gentle
(29:49):
and truthful is the right path. And God bless you
for following that. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So it's not easy.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I mean, no, no, it isn't. It isn't we No
I I want to I want to lash out all
the time. I'm trying to spread the good news. But
believe me, like many times I've been tempted to, Wow,
I just want to have read about something. And you know,
occasionally do that on another podcasts, but not this one.
But yeah, I mean you're right, like you want to
(30:22):
like engage and like you know, get get get into it.
But that's that's really not the most productive way, is it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I've been told, like I've had someone approach me in
public and tell me that God's going to wrap a
millstone around my neck and draw me in the pits
of hell. And there were children nearby, and so I
just had to say, you did that make you feel
good to say that to me?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And walk away?
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Because what am I supposed to yell and scream? And
then the kids see this screaming batch of public like that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Is yeah, that makes it worse. Just that escalates it
and makes it worse. And and and you're right, that's
that's the way. Just you know, follow the the the perseverance,
but gentle path.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
And and then you can go to your own house
and then you can take your vision dollars.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Sure, no, after that all bets are off, but you
know when you're when you when you're confronting them.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That's that's the way of it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Amanda Jones, thank you so much for being with us
today again. She's the author of That Librarian, The Fight
against Book Banning in America. Where can we find out
more about you and what you do and get copies
of your book?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I do have a website.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I probably need to update it a little better, but
it's librarian Jones dot com and there's a tab that
says speaking out which I'll tell you everything about my
fight and what's happening. And there's toolkits and resources. And
I'm also on Instagram at that librarian Jones and blue
Sky at librarian Jones dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's where you can find me.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
That's wonderful. Amanda, thanks so much for being with us
today on good news for lefties. All the best and
your your struggles moving forward, and and may you have
may you have kids coming into your library? Who are
the who are the grandchildren of those that you first
went to school with? Hoping for that and the generation.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'm said to thank you for having me all the best.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
M M M
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