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Books About Disability Are Popular Banning Targets: Book Censorship News, July 12, 2024

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Kelly Jensen

Editor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

The data on book bans shows precisely the themes and topics that are being targeted and that have been targeted since early 2021 in this most recent wave of censorship. Among them are books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, books that explore social and emotional learning, and books that explore sexuality and puberty. But there’s another segment of books targeted that has not been as deeply explored as the others — indeed, while PEN America’s data notes that books about health and wellbeing were the second most frequently banned in schools in the 2022-2023 school year, that category is so broad that it fails to specify that many of those books are about disability.

July is Disability Pride Month. Like with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, it’s crucial to talk about in the context of book bans because people with disabilities are also targets of censorship and erasure. While Disability Pride Month is about celebrating disability, that celebration comes with reflection and the understanding that Pride is necessary because of the conditions, systems, and structures built to hinder and harm disabled people. We live in a world where even so-called “good” “blue” states are enacting bans on face masks under the guise of safety, putting the most vulnerable into even further harm and further isolation. That is the same goal of book banners: isolation and stigma.

Disenfranchisement is the perfect opportunity to roll back freedoms and protections that disability advocates have been fighting for generations. The Americans With Disabilities Act is only 34 years old, and as we’ve seen discrimination become a-okay with marginalized groups through Supreme Court decisions, it is not a leap to believe that further harm will be coming to disabled people. Indeed, the overturning of the Chevron Doctrine is yet another step to put power into the hands of the already powerful rather than those who are actual experts; Project 2025 also has its sights on overturning and removing protections for disabled people. All of this further sets the stage for mis-, dis-, and mal- information about disability to flourish and become a weapon against disabled people.

There’s a common saying that most of us have far more in common with the houseless than we do billionaires. Many are one mistake, one accident, one medical bill away from losing their entire livelihoods. The same goes for those who do not live with a disability, seen or unseen. We are all much closer to having one or being close with someone who does than never once encountering the possibility. This is for every reason you can surmise, including and especially climate change, the cost of healthcare, super-spreader illnesses like COVID, the anti-vaccine movement, mis/dis/mal information, and more.

Mental health issues are disability issues. That amounts to one out of every five U.S. adults. Attacks on books about social and emotional learning and books that explore diversity, equity, and inclusion are attacks on learning about and discussing mental health. Attacks on books about health and wellness are not only about sexuality and puberty; they’re also about people who live with limb differences, invisible illnesses, wheelchair users, dwarfism, and much, much more. Attacks on books with diversity, equity, and inclusion themes are not “just” about race or gender. They’re about disability and the intersections of disability, race, social class, gender, sexuality, and every other marginalization.

Anyone who isn’t the cishet white, able-bodied Christian male is not deemed worthy of much in our culture as it is. The targeting and removal of books that feature such people, both as characters or authors, is a reminder that more people than not are not seen as people at all.

Given the thousands of books banned since 2021 and given how much representation of the disability experience has grown in the last 10 years specifically — we’re seeing not only more voices and perspectives but we’re seeing far fewer stories meant to be inspiration porn for able-bodied people — it would be impossible to quantify just how many books with a disability theme, thread, or connection have been banned. But with the help of Tasslyn Magnusson’s book banning tracker and limiting the search to books banned in 2023 and 2024, here’s a sample of the disability-forward books targeted by censors. Note that this list does not necessarily reflect strong disability representation — this is because the vast majority of books targeted by censors are not new books but have an average publication date of 13-15 years ago.

Image of a book cover collage of 9 banned books about disability. Titles of books are in text below the image.

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, Blindness by Jose Saramongo, Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen (disclosure: me), Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic, Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwinge Danticat, The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime by Mark Haddon, Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Image of a book cover collage of 9 banned books about disability. Titles of books are in text below the image.

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary by NoNieqa Ramos, The Diving Bell and Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, Guts by Raina Telgemeier, Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult, Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea by Ashley Herring Blake

Image of a book cover collage of 9 banned books about disability. Titles of books are in text below the image.

Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw, Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday by Natalie C. Anderson, Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork, Names Will Never Hurt Me by Jaime Adoff, Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick, Queerly Autistic by Erin Ekins, A Quick and Easy Guide to Sex and Disability by A. Andrews

Image of a book cover collage of 9 banned books about disability. Titles of books are in text below the image.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Some Assembly Required by Arin Andrews, Stars In Their Eyes by Jessica Walton and Aska, Still Life With Tornado by AS King, Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw, Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall, Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Image of a book cover collage of 9 banned books about disability. Titles of books are in text below the image.

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, Wildman by J. C. Geiger, Wonder by RJ Palacio, Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Book Censorship News: July 12, 2024