From lawsuits to giveaway drives, a push against book bans
As daylight turns to dusk and a closed sign dangles from the outside of EyeSeeMe, a St. Louis children’s bookstore, a glance through a side window reveals an after-hours banned books operation. Paper strips litter the floor. Books pass from hand to hand as eight volunteers package 600 copies of “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison to ship to kids and parents across the nation.
The bookstore is working in with In Purpose Educational Services on the Banned Book Program, a donor-funded campaign that will send a free banned book each month to those who request one, as funding allows. Started just days after a school district in a suburb near St. Louis voted in January to remove copies of “The Bluest Eye” from its libraries, the program has already received over $30,000 from people around
