In several Wyoming communities, including Casper, Gillette, Lander and Sheridan, some members of the public have turned typically staid school board meetings into chaos by clamoring to have all LGBTQ-themed or sex-related books -- even textbooks -- pulled from shelves.--Kerry Drake, WyoFile, May 21, 2024
Add Cheyenne to the list.
Author Kirsten Miller's new novel takes its cue from the recent book-banning tide by Moms for Liberty and other right-wing groups. While whiney complainers go ballistic over books in schools and libraries that feature minority and LBGTQ characters, Miller's book provides us with some welcome comic relief.
“Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books” is a rollicking novel about this most timely of subjects. I cared for the characters – even the bad guys -- and I ploughed ahead to find out what happens to book banner Lula Dean and Little Library saboteur whose name I won’t reveal here because it was so nice to shout “Ah ha!” when that character is revealed. One of the pleasures of reading is anticipating what happens on the next page. Our protagonist finds a way to use Lula Dean’s library to get banned books into the hands of everyday people in the town.
If you have ever come across a Little Library in your neighborhood, it’s like finding a treasure. A Little Library is as quirky as the people who install these distinctive structures in their front yard and stock it with books. It might feature one topic, say astronomy or gardening or children’s literature. A little librarian who is a fiction fan might stock mysteries or cowboy romances or just a hodgepodge of novels set in 18th century France, Mars of the future, or modern-day Manhattan.
In a county library, books are
arranged just so by trained librarians. You want “Beloved” by
Toni Morrison, you stroll to the fiction section and find it under M. If
confused, you can look up the location on the library’s bank of computers. And,
this may seem quaint and outdated, but you also can ask a librarian. They are
very helpful.
In Lula Dean’s case, she is so outraged by some of the “filth” foisted on unsuspecting teen readers. ] Lula Dean stocks her library with hardcover books on wholesome subjects. Titles include “The Art of Crochet,” “Contract with America,” “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” and “Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe.” It won’t be long before a bored teen turns into a dedicated saboteur who will muck up Lula Dean’s efforts to invoke the tenets spelled out in Project 2025.
Crystal Moore is a textbook housewife until she sees her husband cheating on her with a cashier at the local Piggly Wiggly. Desperate, she goes to Lula’s library to find a way to win back her husband. She picks “The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right.” Once she starts reading she discovers the book is “All Women are Witches: Find Your Power and Put it to Use.” The preacher’s daughter is shocked, at first, but starts reading and finds some helpful advice that might “keep Janelle Hopkins’ giant boobs away from my husband.”
Well, first she wanders into the woods to pick up
items for a love potion from the "Witches" book. She gets lost in the woods and unleashes a string of obscenities that might not win her Mother of the Year honors. She finds a pond, strips, and goes swimming. She dries off by the
pond and is absorbed by nature. She’s still there when the sun sets and the
moon rises. Next thing she knows, it’s morning and a search party is calling
out her name. She returns home but life is never going to be the same for her
husband and family or the town of Troy. Its residents find secret texts in
Lula’s library and put them to good use.
The author, who grew up in North Carolina, sets the
novel in a small community in Georgia.
Why not some little town in the Carolinas or possibly even Wyoming? Why not,
indeed (see the intro quote). Georgia has featured heavily in the Christian
Right’s effort to take away books from our kids and eventually (we know it’s
coming) from adult readers and even crotchety old guy readers such as myself. Georgia
is not all MAGA hats and smoke-belching pickups. It’s also home to liberal
Atlanta with its thousands of curious readers as well as Tyler Perry’s groundbreaking
movie studio. Georgia is also home to Athens which enlivened the independent
music scene with R.E.M., the B-52s, and Widespread Panic. Georgia-based Jimmy
Carter and Habitat for Humanity practice the “woke” Bible with good deeds for
communities across the globe.
We are reminded daily that not every burg wants to ban
books. But there are too many that are. Ignoramuses with Bible in hand and a
seething resentment they can’t explain serve on too many local school boards in
every Wyoming county.
This hubbub may eventually die down and readers
decades from now may wonder what the fuss was about. I’m reminded of Carl
Hiaasen’s book “Squeeze Me” and its predatory humans and Burmese pythons. The
book’s only four years old and man what a fun ride it was. We had hoped that by
this time the book’s main character, a certain human predator in South Florida,
would be gone from the political stage. But he’s not. Someone should write a
book about it.
Miller was inspired, finished the book in record time, and Harper
Collins wasted little time in getting it into our hands. The publishing process
is agonizingly slow so credit goes to Miller, her agent, proofreaders, and HC.
The big question: Do satires ever do any good? “Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is now 60
years old and me and everyone else in Wyoming’s Capital City are surrounded by nuclear
missiles that could wipe out humankind at the punch of a button. Know-it-alls
who want to tell the rest of us what to do and what to read have always been
with us. The pungent film “Idiocracy” is now seen as a documentary. The
brilliant “Catch-22” and “Slaughterhouse Five” did little to stop warfare. What’s
the point?
The point is that fine books such as “Anne Frank: The
Diary of a Young Girl,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” have
something important to tell us. People who read are more informed and more
engaged citizens. Maybe that’s what Lula Dean and her crowd are afraid of.
That’s exactly what they are afraid of.
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