American Libraries Dewey Decibel Podcast

While we’re busy searching for our new Call Number host, we thought we’d dip into the vault and re-air some of our most popular episodes. Today we’re replaying our sixth episode, “Banned Books,” which originally aired in October 2016. In 2021, libraries across the country saw a record number of book challenges, and the wisdom of this episode from five years ago is—unfortunately—just as applicable today. In this episode, former host Phil Morehart first interviews James LaRue, the then-executive director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. They discuss book challenges and bans—why they happen and what libraries can do to protect themselves. Next he talks to Sara Stevenson, a librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas, who faced a book challenge over the John Green YA novel Looking for Alaska. And finally, he talks to Marjane Satrapi, author of the award-winning graphic novel Persepolis, about how her book was being briefly banned at a Chicago high school and the nature of censorship.