Library hosts anti-book ban presentation

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Public Library hosted a special presentation on book banning in Iowa on Saturday, May 17.

Annie’s Foundation, based in Johnston in the Des Moines area, is made up of a small group of volunteers that came together in response to what they saw as an aggressive increase in challenges to books deemed offensive in their area.

“We started looking and realized this was happening all over the place in Iowa and the country,” said group founder and President Sara Parris.

Named after the late Ann Lohry-Smith, an Ankeny mother involved in the cause, the group today works to counter organizations like Moms for Liberty by advocating for the protection of access to literature, particularly books about racial minorities and members of the LGBT community, which are most often the target of challenges.

Along with freely distributing banned and challenged books to students, the group keeps track of Iowa Legislators who work counter to their interests, including Sen. Sandy Salmon, whose district includes Charles City.

“Sen. Sandy Salmon has demanded the removal of books from public schools for years,” said Parris, incredulous over what she said Salmon considers obscene, which includes “And Tango Makes Three,” a book about two real penguins from the Central Park Zoo in New York that paired up and were given an egg to hatch.

“There’s no sex in the book,” said Parris. “It’s about two penguins that happen to be boys and they still try to ban it.”

In Iowa, the state passed Senate File 496 in 2023, which requires Iowa schools to remove books depicting any kind of sex act, such as award-winning books like “The Color Purple” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The Iowa Department of Education has only recently issued guidance for how schools should abide by the law, which is also being challenged in two federal lawsuits.

“We’re trying to prepare our kids for higher education,” said Parris. “We’re not doing them any favors by banning challenging books.”

For the most part, challenges to books have focused on school libraries, though public libraries and even private book stores have been targeted.

“They want to make it a crime to sell specific books,” said Parris. “There’s no stopping.”

For the Charles City Public Library, Librarian Kamryn Kronschnabel said that they have been fortunate in not receiving challenges to books in their circulation.

“Which is good, I’ll take that,” said Kronschnabel. “I’m thankful that it hasn’t hit the Charles City community too hard.”

Kronschnabel instead identified the biggest challenge to the library is the elimination of the local library levy, which has resulted in budget cuts that will impact the library’s ability to purchase new materials, controversial or not.