Bringing It to Light Book Banning in the Sunshine State
Florida is at the forefront of book banning and challenges in the nation, with over 40% of all documented book bans in the US occurring within the state (Howzell & Tager, 2023). With state legislation such as the Don't Say Gay bill and the Stop WOKE Act passed in 2022, efforts to censor materials are likely to persist. Book censorship, whether in classrooms or libraries, is a significant issue that especially affects youth by limiting their exposure to a diverse range of narratives. Frequently, the most challenged and banned books are those that feature authors of color, explore themes of race or gender identity, and address mental health issues and sex. Consequently, young people, especially those with marginalized identities, may find it harder to access stories that resonate with their own life experiences or learn about difficult issues.
Because legislation in the state of Florida puts the risk of penalty on school boards, teachers, and librarians and because guidelines on what counts as inappropriate or obscene material are vague and highly subjective, many books have been pulled from shelves preemptively (Soule, 2024). While this fear certainly makes the jobs of teachers and librarians more fearful and difficult, it also adds to the loss of student access to these books as they are held for review.
While Florida currently leads the nation in book banning, these attempts at censorship are reaching record levels across the US and are related to a long history of concerns over whose stories students can have access to and what topics are suitable for our country's youth (ALA, 2023; Burmester & Howard, 2022; Dorrell & Busch, 2000; Garcia, 2024). There is an urgency to counter these efforts to limit what students can read.
"Stories humanize us. They emphasize our differences in ways that can ultimately bring us closer together. They allow us to see how the world looks from behind someone else's spectacles. They challenge us to wipe off our own lenses and ask, 'Could I have been overlooking something all along?'" (Delgado, 1989)
This project highlights the impacts of book banning and censorship in the state of Florida through a series of cyanotype postcards. The data visualized in this project comes from PEN America's Index of School Book Bans, a comprehensive list of every instance of book banning in the US from July 2022 - June 2023. They gathered this data from local and national news stories, school district websites and board minutes, as well from public records. The index does not track every book challenge, but rather every instance in which access to a book has been restricted or diminished either temporarily or permanently.
From this national list of more than 3,000 individual bans, I only collected data from the state of Florida. I then counted the titles with the most number of bans enacted against them. The top range consisted of 13 books with 9-15 bans per title across the state.
To physicalize this data I used the method of cyanotype to create a series of postcards. Cyanotype is a simple form of photography in which paper, fabric, or other natural fiber is coated with a photosensitive solution that develops when exposed to UV light. Traditionally, cyanotype has been popular for creating botanical prints where leaves, seaweed, or flowers are used to create images and impressions when exposed to the sun. For this project, I created transparencies of book covers (negatives) that I exposed with a UV lamp. Because this project emphasizes what is happening to book access regarding book banning, the medium of cyanotype allows us to think about themes of exposure: What stories and content can students be exposed to? What dangers come with overexposure? Who is impacted from underexposure? What develops as a result?
I chose the form of postcards because postcards typically show off what a place is most proud of. They are meant to entice the viewer or give a snapshot of an idyllic reality. There many people in Florida that are proud of these banning efforts and see this restriction of book access as a positive force in the state (Howzell & Tager, 2023). Postcards are also meant to be sent to other places and the restrictive legislation in Florida has inspired numerous copy cat bills in other states (Howzell & Tager, 2023). These postcards represent the ways that these ideas are encouraged and spread in the US.
To translate the data I gathered in the table above, I first created cyanotype test strips to show how the solution develops under different lengths of exposure. In the pictures you can see the strips with increasing exposure frequencies of 10 seconds (left) and 30 seconds (right). I then set a minimum and maximum exposure level for the the range of data in the table and adjusted to exposure times to correlate to how many bans each book had received. The result is that the more bans a book has, the less exposure time that postcard gets and the more faint the image will appear.
Each print is made with a transparency of the book cover along with excerpts from bills that have contributed to the removal of books from schools and libraries in Florida.
Works Consulted
American Library Association. (2023). The State of America’s Libraries 2023: A Report from the American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/news/state-americas-libraries-report-2023
Burmester, S., & Howard, L. C. (2022). Confronting book banning and assured curricular neutrality: A critical inquiry framework. Theory into Practice, 61(4), 373-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2022.2107343.
Coffman, S. (5 Jan 2022). Testing my Indoor Cyanotype Setup [Blog]. Stephanie Coffman Photography. https://www.stephcoffmanphoto.com/blog/beginner-indoor-cyanotype-setup.
Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411-2441. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1289308.
Dorrell, L. D., & Busch, A. (2000). Censorship in schools. Knowledge Quest, 28(3), 24. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/censorship-schools/docview/194722925/se-2.
Garcia, R. (14 Mar 2024). “American Library Association reports record number of unique book titles challenged in 2023” ALAnews. https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2024/03/american-library-association-reports-record-number-unique-book-titles.
H.B. 1069. 2023 Legislature. (Fla. 2023). https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/PDF.
Howzell, R., & Tager, J. (2023). The Florida Effect: How the Sunshine State is Driving the Conservative Agenda on Free Expression. PEN America. https://pen.org/report/the-florida-effect/.
PEN America. (2022-2023). PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans (July 1, 2022 - June30, 2023) [Google Sheets file]. PEN America. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a6v7R7pidO7TIwRZTIh9T6c0--QNNVufcUUrDcz2GJM/edit#gid=982757372.
Soule, D. (12 Jan 2024). Fearing penalites, some Florida school districts are pulling hundreds of books. Tallahassee Democrat. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/12/desantis-laws-are-causing-schools-to-pull-hundreds-of-books-for-review-florida/72095888007/.