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Silver Award Spotlight: Challenged and Banned Book Awareness
When Girl Scout Cadette Abra learned that book challenges nearly doubled from 2021-2022 according to the American Library Association, she knew this topic would be an opportunity for her to bring together one of her passions — reading — with a Girl Scout Silver Award project that could make an impact on her community. The past few years have seen the highest number of requests to ban books ever recorded in libraries; 1,269 demands were documented attempting to censor library books and resources in 2022. With libraries acting as a hub of access to free resources in our communities, Abra knew that these bans could have a big impact on people of all ages, especially children. These bans also felt personal to Abra as she is a voracious reader, frequently checking out books from her local library, and she has learned so much and expanded her knowledge from books that are frequently found on the banned and challenged lists.
In education systems and in public libraries, books usually are challenged with positive intentions — to protect others, often children, from harmful ideas and information, but many scholars and historians believe censorship to be a step on the First Amendment. A “challenge” is defined as an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group, and a “ban” is the physical removal of those materials.
“My Silver Award project involved increasing the awareness of challenged and banned books,” Abra said. “I did this by creating bookmarks for public libraries to hand out, compiling perspectives on banned books from other children and teenagers who had read them, hosting an event at the library for parents and children to make crafts related to banned books, and presenting to the York County Library Board.”
To organize her project, she started by meeting with the library’s Youth Services Coordinator. This first meeting was important as Abra learned more about what librarians were seeing with the challenges and the impact on their work and library patrons. She was able to bring her ideas about a possible project and received feedback and guidance from the director about what needs the project might fill in their community. After presenting her project idea to the York County Library board and receiving approval, Abra moved forward with planning a public event for the purpose of community involvement and awareness. During the event, families were invited to make crafts and learn about some of the banned books now available at York County Library, such as The Story of Ferdinand and Charlotte’s Web.
“I created bookmarks that could be colored in as children read different banned books that the York County libraries offer for check out,” Abra shared. “I also collected feedback from different children and teenagers who read some of these books, and displayed them on a board at the event along with information on recently banned books.”
Even though the event made a direct impact on raising awareness and was a fun activity for children, Abra knew she wanted to continue to raise awareness beyond those few hours for the people who attended. To do this, the bookmarks she created will be kept on hand for distribution at the library. Following Abra’s library event, she presented her results to the York County Library Board. She described her crafts and talked about the feedback she received from kids and families who attended. Abra was most excited to share the overwhelming feedback from fellow Girl Scouts, classmates, and friends supporting the right for families to choose appropriate books together.
Congratulations, Abra!
6/24/2023: Abra was featured in an article at wydaily.com for her work with the York County Library Board!
