I found this documentary deeply upsetting. I never thought there would be a situation where librarians would be the frontline warriors for human rights.

Director Kim A Snyder gives us the story of the current war on books in school libraries in the USA. It begins with the Krause list of 850 books provided by a state Republican politician with no particular expertise and delivered to school libraries first in Texas. They had to be pulled from the shelves as they were ‘immoral and unsuitable for children’.

It will be a surprise to no one who has been following the news for the past few years to learn that just about all of the books are about people who are not heterosexual or white or cisgender. They are books about racism, about black history in America, about characters who are gay, even a children’s books about a penguin chick who has two dads.

We see the moral outrage from parents and agitators spread from district to district and then from state to state, throwing around words like pornography, sexually explicit content, grooming and paedophilia. The targets become the librarians who according to their code must not remove books from circulation based on the beliefs of their authors or because of race or gender.

We find out about the conservative dollars behind group such as Mother’s for Liberty and Patriot Mobile, coordinated organisations who are deliberately targeting school boards as a way to influence community and curriculum so that it is more “Christian.”

We hear from many librarians who are clever, educated, kind and dedicated to being a support for children but who lose their jobs and are relentlessly threatened with harm. We see the school board meetings where trans and queer young people stand up and talk about how important it is for them that there are books that reflect who they are. We also hear from self appointed evangelists who believe they are saving children on behalf of God but are oblivious to their un-Christian actions.

It is a deeply unsettling and upsetting watch as we have to sit and hear people say things with such hatred and listen to young people who are feeling so hated and broken. It is made worse by the fact that we know that nothing has changed since this documentary would’ve been finished, in fact it probably is getting worse. To see the money and power and influence behind these decisions that are being made about schools in communities makes it feel hopeless that anything will improve without a regime change.

I think about all of the kids who will feel shame about themselves and who may be driven to take their own lives because they feel so isolated. There is one young person who says at a school board meeting that they should remember that any government that has burned books never turns out to be the good guys. Word.