5 years, 5 book challenges at San Diego libraries
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
San Diego's libraries received five official book challenges in the last five years and made some changes as a result.
Why it matters: No books were banned outright, making San Diego and the rest of California an outlier from other parts of the country.
- More than 5,600 books were banned across the U.S. last year, according to the American Library Association.
Zoom in: Here were the five challenges in San Diego:
- "You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things!" by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth. It was challenged for being too mature for small children and the library agreed, moving it to the teen collection, supervising librarian Robyn Gage-Norquist told Axios.
- "The Very Best Plan" by Amanda Davis was challenged for describing marriage as being between a man and a woman. The library kept it because it met its collection policy criteria.
- "The Art of Hand Shadows" by Albert Almoznino was challenged for including a racist image. The library kept it for its historical value but removed it from the children's collection.
- "The Secret History of the English Language" by M.J. Harper was challenged over concerns about incorrect information. The library removed it under its weeding policy because it had not been checked out in years.
- "Hasta que Alguien Me Escuche: Una Historia Sobre las Fronteras, la Familia y la Misión de una Niña" by Estela Juarez was challenged over concerns about incorrect information. The library determined the information was factually correct and kept it.
Another author challenged the library for not including his book, but it didn't meet the library's collection criteria, Gage-Norquist said.
Zoom out: School districts across the country banned 12,000 books last year, the most bans recorded in a single year since PEN America began tracking bans in 2021.
- Two books were banned in California.
State of books: The majority of books pulled from school libraries nationally last year fell into the young adult fiction and manga (comic books and graphic novels) categories, per the report. Around 90% of the titles were fiction.
- The banned titles include "Looking for Alaska," "Jane Eyre" and "Lessons in Chemistry."