For more than 30 years, I have had the privilege of serving as a youth librarian—in northwest Iowa, then in suburban communities, and although now retired, most recently in Ames. Across those years, I have witnessed the profound power of books.
I’ve seen a child pick up a book and see a character with curly hair just like theirs, or the same skin color, and suddenly go from thinking, "I can’t do that" to "They did it—so can I." I saw a toddler’s joy at a first picture book, a middle-schooler discovering a series or graphic novel they can’t put down, a teenager finding a novel that feels written just for them. Books cultivate empathy, allowing children to feel what it’s like to live in someone else’s shoes, confront experiences they may never face directly, and imagine solutions to the challenges others encounter.
Yet today we are seeing a rise in attempts to block young people from reading widely and learning about the world—and themselves—through books. A 2023 statewide book ban law, even though the ACLU of Iowa and others have managed to get it temporarily blocked, has resulted in 3,700 titles across 117 districts being pulled in public schools K-12. They included time-honored classics, like 1984 to The Handmaid’s Tale. Even And Tango Makes Three, the story of two male penguins raising a chick together, has been challenged, despite its simple message of love and family.
Especially in this era of vast amounts of online information, books matter. Youth literature provides information and stories in a way that helps children process information in a completely different, more nuanced way. And it’s critical that young people have access to books at school. Not every child has a family who will take them to a public library. Not all children can afford to buy books. Each book removed from a school is a lost chance for children to learn about themselves, practice empathy, or see lives unlike their own.
Iowa has a proud history of championing intellectual freedom. In 1938, Forrest Spaulding, director of what was then the Des Moines Public Library (now the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates), drafted the Library Bill of Rights to counter censorship and intolerance. Adopted locally and later by the American Library Association, it set the foundation for equitable access to information. Iowa’s Open Records Law (1967) reinforced confidentiality for library records, protecting readers’ privacy and freedom to explore ideas. These milestones remind us that access to books is part of our state’s legacy—and that book bans contradict the principles Iowa pioneered.
Book bans are not new, but we are seeing this latest wave in part because of how far children’s literature has grown. Beginning in the 1970s, books featuring diverse voices across race, gender, and sexuality gave young readers mirrors that reflect their own experiences. They provided windows that showed lives unlike their own. The offered sliding glass doors that invited them to new experiences.
While I am disturbed at these latest attempts to ban children’s books, history reminds me bans like this do not last. I’m heartened to see librarians, teachers, authors, students, and ordinary book lovers of all sorts speaking up across Iowa and the nation, standing up and asserting that books are lifelines, not threats. I am optimistic that no matter what laws are passed, books and ideas prevail. We can’t remove a half century of flourishing youth literature from minds, our hearts—or our state.
