Let's support buying banned books on sale in Florida!

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/4043876-our-goal-is-to-spread-literature-florida-couple-sells-banned-books-at-new-book-store/

‘Our goal is to spread literature’: Florida couple sells banned book. Their goal is to sell donated books at inexpensive prices, with the priciest book in the shop costing only $8.

An echo report published in Changing America: Shared Destiny, Shared Responsibility- published in The Hill* blog by Jack Royer:

"Books were always very important to me. So when I found out someone was throwing away 10,000 pounds of books a week away, I was like 'What? We can't have that.'"

Pinellas County couple selling banned books at new book store.

George and Sarah Brooks have turned their love of books into a full-time job after opening their store, The Book Rescuers, in Pinellas Park.

Their goal is to sell donated books at inexpensive prices, with the priciest book in the shop costing only $8.

They maintain a shelf of books banned across the state and country.

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (WFLA) — A couple in Florida is seeking to provide the people of Pinellas County with more accessible, affordable books — including some titles that have been banned by schools in the area.

George and Sarah Brooks have turned their love of books into a full-time job after opening their store, The Book Rescuers, in Pinellas Park. Their goal is to sell donated books at inexpensive prices, with the priciest book in the shop costing only $8.

The Brooks’ effort began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they found out some online booksellers were trashing titles that had little resale value.

“It blew our mind. We were like, ‘That’s insane, can we take your trash and sort it?'” Sarah Brooks remembered.

“Books were always very important to me. So when I found out someone was throwing away 10,000 pounds of books a week away, I was like ‘What? We can’t have that,'” she added.

Among the books available at The Book Rescuers are titles banned in some school districts across Florida and around the country. 

A shelf dedicated to these “banned books” contains entire sets donated by teachers who were told they needed to remove them from their classrooms.

The store’s owners, however, insist their efforts have nothing to do with politics.

“I understand that people don’t want their kids reading certain things and I also feel like you don’t have a right to tell me what my kids can read,” she added. 

*(NEXSTAR) – (By Alex Martichoux in April 2023) Attempts to ban books in libraries and schools reached a 20-year high, the American Library Association said. The group announced it had documented 1,269 demands to censor more than 2,500 titles in 2022.

That’s the highest number recorded since the ALA, which advocates for expanding libraries, literacy and intellectual freedom, started keeping track in 2001.

The 13 most challenged titles in 2022, according to the ALA, were:

“Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
“Flamer” by Mike Curato
“Looking for Alaska” by John Green
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
“Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
“Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez
“A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas
“Crank” by Ellen Hopkins
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews
“This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson

The ALA defines a challenge as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”

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