Alicia Keys would seem to be far removed from the recent spike in book bannings that has indies across the country up in arms. But the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter’s appearance on Thursday, March 10, at the American Booksellers Association’s Snow Days virtual conference to talk up her new YA graphic novel provided a seamless segue into a roundtable discussion of booksellers brainstorming what they can do to support schools and libraries against those who would deny children access to certain books.
“I know that we were supposed to be in-person, which I do wish we were,” Keys told Donya Craddock, co-owner of The Dock Bookshop in Fort Worth, Tex., as the two began their conversation. “But the world is showing us is that we have endless possibilities and that nothing can stop us from connecting. I am really excited to be here with this beautiful community, and so powerful, and to tell you about Lolo Wright.”
Lolo Wright, the protagonist in Keys’s graphic novel, Girl on Fire, co-written by Andrew Weiner and illustrated by Brittney Williams (HarperAlley, Mar.), is a 17-year-old high schooler living in Brooklyn with her father, grandmother, and brother. She realizes that she possesses a superpower after her brother is profiled by police officers and harassed.
“She finds this power in her that ends up holding this police officer up in the air and when she lets go, he crashes to the floor and is hurt and she is scared,” Keys said. “That is the beginning of her discovering this power in her that she has to figure out. What is she going to do with it, how can she use it in a way that helps people and herself? It goes into so many family issues and neighborhood situations, and friends and family, and the drama of being a 17-year-old with a superpower.”
“I just love this book,” Craddock said, noting its crossover appeal. “It’s got that social activism, it’s got that inter-generational love, it has trying to understand the challenges within your community, and within your schools. It’s a whole new day, and I think this helps us relate to those things within the schools.”
Girl on Fire, Keys explained, builds upon her bestselling 2012 anthem, “Girl on Fire.” Describing the song as “a reminder of our power,” she described the “natural, organic” evolution of the graphic novel during a seven-year collaboration with Weiner as a “powerful statement.” Lolo is modeled upon Keys’s younger self, down to the hair beads and casual clothing. Keys described Lolo’s harnessing her superpower as a metaphor for “so many things,” especially social activism.
“This is grappling with what your destiny is and what you are meant to do,” she said. “It is sometimes a lot. You feel like, can you do it, can you handle the mission that has been given to you, the purpose that you have?”
“The main takeaway, I would like you to realize,” she added, “[is that we] contain a world of unknown power within us and there is no limit around us, no matter how scary it seems to find your greatness, to accept your greatness. It lives within you for a reason and it’s meant to be used, to help people, to make sure you help yourself and your family. There is something inside, there is a flame that you get to cultivate and bring into your world.”
When asked what books she read in her youth that especially resonated, Keys maintained that she has always enjoyed reading “all different kinds of books,” but that “one of the first books that really exploded my mind” when she read it in her teens was A Taste of Power by Elaine Brown, the first woman to chair the Black Panther Party. “It lit me up in a way I didn’t even know I needed to be lit up. I really related to her and connected to her story.” Willa Cather’s My Antonía was another major influence, inspiring her younger self to “look at the way I use my words when writing in a different way.” Keys named as other favorite authors James Baldwin, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison. “It’s a gift to have been able to read such incredible literature,” she said. “You’re changed by it, completely changed.”
Battling Book Bans
“I would love to know from people who are also dealing with [book bannings in schools and libraries]: How are you dealing with it? How are you helping? What kind of things work for you?” asked Heather Hebert of Children’s Book World in Haverford, Pa., one of the three moderators of the roundtable on book bannings that followed Keys’s presentation. She related how even in her “well educated, and I thought, open-minded area” on Philadelphia’s Main Line, school principals are screening library acquisitions, “every single book brought into a school, even books brought in for author visits and book fairs. It’s bad. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“In Minnesota, which I don’t think of as taking these kinds of drastic actions,” noted Holly Weinkauf, owner of Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, “there is a parents’ bill of rights, in which librarians are to provide parents with a list of every title in their libraries. It’s a good wake-up call to me to pay attention to what is happening around our store—even if you live in a place where you think these things won’t come up.”
Stories of resistance abounded from a dozen booksellers participating in the discussion, while many more listened in, some of whom posted their comments and questions in the chat. Alana Haley, marketing coordinator for Schuler’s Books in Grand Rapids, Mich., said banned book displays have been set up “front and center in our stores, so that when you walk in, that’s the first thing you see.” Schuler’s also offers a list of resources for customers. “We are gently pointing out that this is a problem, sharing that information on social media, and providing information in the stores to people on what they can do, action items, so that they don’t feel helpless.”
Carrie Koepke, manager of Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Mo., related that when the local school district decreed that no books on critical race theory be allowed, high school students rebelled by setting up their own libraries on school grounds “because they are allowed to do that; so we’re offering discounted titles, donated titles.” Those high school students, she explained, plan on reaching out to middle school students, to provide them with access to the books in their libraries.
Amber Norris, marketing and publicity coordinator at Left Bank Books in St. Louis, described how, after the Wentzville, Mo., school district banned The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and other books, the store’s nonprofit foundation launched a fundraising drive to purchase those banned books; they were then donated to anyone requesting them.
“It wasn’t even originally our idea,” she said, noting that a Black-owned children’s bookstore in St. Louis, EyeSeeMe Bookstore, had launched a similar fundraising drive. “We had people come to us and ask us what they could do, and are we doing something, because they wanted to do something. We raised over $10,000, so it’s going quite well.”
Saving Children’s Lives
Roundtable moderator Brein Lopez, general manager of Children’s Book World in Los Angeles, urged booksellers to partner with other organizations that could distribute books efficiently within communities, “so that we have a dedicated place to able to send books. Right now, there is a tendency for people to want to send books to the schools where they’re being banned, but the likelihood of those books getting to the people they need to get to is not going to happen. Interfaith organizations would be interesting, or nonprofit organizations.” He also encouraged booksellers to provide a safe space for any groups, such as LGBTQ teens who may have been banned from meeting on school grounds.
“This has the potential to affect our livelihood, right?” the third moderator, Diane Capriola, owner of Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga., said, “But the real reason we’re here is because of the kids we serve: we want to make sure they feel safe and they’re taken care of. I love that idea of providing a space if they don’t feel they have that at their schools.”
Lopez also urged booksellers to harness the power of the internet. He explained that Children’s Book World has been shipping books all over the country, and suggested that booksellers spotlight controversial books on their websites so that customers can easily find them. Capriola added that booksellers should also use social media to express support for booksellers and librarians in embattled states and communities. “That’s a really effective way to raise awareness of what’s going on.”
Hebert suggested launching a letter-writing campaign. “Maybe that’s one way to help all of these areas with bookstores and schools facing this—a letter saying, this is why these books are important. This is what happens when these kids don’t have these books. These are the percentages of people who harm themselves.”
Norris referenced Craddock’s disclosure on a Snow Days panel of Black women booksellers that took place two days earlier, explaining that The Dock Bookshop hosts discussions on critical race theory not only to correct misinformation, but also for “her community to talk and grieve the impact of this, as it has an impact on who they are.” Norris suggested that bookstores should be “preemptively educating our possibly-majority-white community about these topics. We could be having community education sessions on what critical race theory actually is.”
Lopez noted, “An important part of this is the fact that the majority of these authors [of banned books], if not all of them, are LGBTQ and BIPOC authors. What [their critics] are trying to do is completely erase any identity other than a straight white identity within schools. All the great work we’ve done is being pushed back on, and hard. We talk about it in terms of stores and communities, but I think about it in terms of the nine-year-old kid in Florida who is going to think about committing suicide because these people are trying to erase every aspect of who they are as a human being. That’s what this is about: it is about the most horrifying type of erasure.”
Kirsten Hess, owner of Let’s Play Bookstore in Emmaus, Pa., who shared her experience of being harassed by white supremacists after testifying against banning books at a school board meeting, had the last word during this roundtable. “I feel like I add value to people’s lives right now,” she declared. “It’s my voice that’s important. I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt before. My nephew came out as trans last year; he’s 16 years old. He came out because he felt comfortable [at Let’s Play]; there was a place he could talk and be himself. And we all do that. We all do that.”
Children’s booksellers will have an opportunity this summer to discuss face-to-face book bannings and other issues as the ABA will return to an in-person conference format with Children’s Institute, scheduled to be held in Phoenix, Ariz., on June 20–22.
