The ABCs of Book Banning

As "The ABCs of Book Banning" (2023 release; 27 min.) opens, we are introduced to Grace Lin, an 100 yo woman attending the Martin County School Board meeting in Florida. She reminds the School Board that her husband died in WWII fighting for our democracy and that book banning is the exact opposite of democracy. The documentary then lets kids talk....

Couple of comments: this is co-directed by the legendary former head of HBO Documentaries, Sheila Nevins. The film makers bring this hotly debated controversy by ignoring any and all adults, and instead let children do all the talking. The kids are aged 7 to 15, and lament why these books are not available in their school library. "Why is Anne Frank's Dairy banned?", laments a girl, "why ban Jewish history?" or Black history, or LGTBQ history, or any other "non-conforming" history. It will break your heart as you watch these kids express their bewilderment and frustration why these books are banned. The last word, however, 100 yo Grace Lin: "The Nazis banned books too. This is about fear of knowledge. This is about power and control." Ms. Lin hits the nail right on the head. These books are not banned "to save the children". Is there a parallel between the Nazis and today's GOP? Absolutely. Each is a party who considers anyone having a different thought, or looks/thinks/acts/is simply different to be "vermin" that must be "crushed" (Trump's words). Banning books is just one tool in the toolbox.

"The ABCs of Book Banning" has received widespread acclaim, including an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary (Short), and deservedly so. IF you have any interest in this important issue, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

What an amazing short film!!! I am just enthralled and amazed by Grace Linn, who was 100 years (young) when she stood up and shared her feelings and opinion about book banning. I was equally impressed with the children that were interviewed. Knowledge is power; there never should be a ban on a book. Doing so allows the word to have power over you.

I almost want to start a book club that has one primary goal - to read and review banned books and then make them available to anyone, but especially children, who want to read them.

We must learn from our past. The only way to do that is to read. I was very impressed with this short documentary and it deserved the Oscar nomination.

I watched this to see if they had anything new to say about the subject, my skepticism wasn't disappointed. The idea that books are banned is a modern progressive piety when the boomer "banned books" reading list is required syllabus reading, and even that has under their influenced waned to the point where it is more likely a kid has read Harry Potter than 1984, never mind anything harder like Solzhenitsyn.

The books in the documentary are all found in big box stores, "my 2 gay penguin dads", they are so not banned they are corporate approved, we are long past the point where Tipper Gore was putting warnings on rap music in Walmarts. It boils down to this, they are not afraid that children won't be exposed to the distilled thoughts of great thinkers through the ages, they are afraid they won't be exposed to what is little more than dumbed down coomer self affirmation ideology, selfie culture grade affirmation literature of crass self obsession and nothing higher.

None of this is about teaching kids how to think, but its the idea of the kid who reads, the kid who repeats the correct opinions for the pleasure of their librarians or teachers.

It was too much to hope this would have some critical examination, at 26 minutes it just flips from quote to quote from their book selection like a chain of tiktoks no depth at all, a low bar for agitprop in 2023.

I don't understand why this is even nominated by the Oscars. Disappointing. It was a highly politicized topic that is poorly introduced, partially represented, with unartful execution. A shallow, senseless propagandistic piece of self-entertainment.

Without holistically introducing the problem of "book banning" and providing scientific arguments to both sides of the problem, the film cut straight into getting some well-rounded children on footage to sway the emotionally inclined public. Nothing substantial there, barely even representational. Same with the slide-by-slide enumeration of "banned" books with some superficial quotes. It was like watching a PowerPoint. Seriously. A YouTuber can do better than this.

I sensed no scientific nor artistic spirit in this piece of slideshow of a film. The biggest failure about it as a documentary- it's neither provocative nor informative.

If you want your kids to be weak, small minded, full of fear, full of hate for the "others" that are "not like them", you ban books. If you want your kids to repeat the most heinous atrocities in history, you ban the books that can teach them the lessons that need to be learned and understood. If you don't want your children to be more intelligent, more empathetic or more intuitive than you, you ban books.

This short documentary is merely putting voice to the children who are being deprived of history, biography, fantasy, imagination, other points of view, understanding your neighbor, understanding themselves. SO SCARY!!