The book bannings in Martin County first came to light in March when an extensive list of banned titles arose. However, these attempts to ban books are rarely restricted to school libraries, with most extending to city and county libraries in an attempt to bar everyone from reading them. Sometimes all it takes is one mundane and inconspicuous reference to sex in a book to claim the book is “sexually explicit.” This is then used to raise panic that school children are being exposed to pornography. This is a tactic in which individuals claim that a book is “pornographic” or “sexually explicit” to spark outrage and hysteria, even when a book in no way falls anywhere near those categories. Meanwhile, the list of the top 13 most banned books of 2022 showed that book challengers are increasingly (and falsely, or at best, disingenuously) categorizing books as “sexually explicit” to justify bans and censorship. The American Library Association (ALA) recorded the highest number of challenges to books in 2022 since they first began accumulating such data 20 years ago. Book censorship has been an ongoing problem, but has grown tremendously since 2020, with challenges and bans to books rising by an astonishing 1,100% in the past two years. The most recent round of book bannings highlights the growing attack on romance novels in public libraries, including works from bestselling authors like Nora Roberts and Jodi Picoult.

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