Today’s post comes courtesy of Katryn Bury, author of the middle grade mystery series Drew Leclair. We featured Katryn a little while back during the release of her first book and we’re delighted to have her return, this time with a post about freedom to read. We’re in the midst of a proliferation of book challenges and bans, and Katryn brings us her perspective both as an author and a librarian. So, get yourself seated and have a read!
Don’t forget, you can keep up with Katryn’s work on twitter and instagram too!
Growing up, I didn’t know that “bisexual” was something a person could be. I barely saw queer characters in books, movies, or tv. What I did see was often presented as a horrifying secret or (at best) a joke. I knew about being heterosexual, of course. That was neatly packaged for me as a “default” through every crush, relationship, and romantic topic I could see. What little I knew about being bi was through the handful of clandestine mentions in the media, but the consensus was clear: either we were hyper-sexual…or we probably didn’t exist at all.
In 1996, when I was almost sure I crushed on both boys and girls, I watched as my favorite Friends character, Phoebe, sang a song that concluded, “Then, there are bisexuals, though some just say they’re kidding themselves.” The song itself was more inclusive of queerness than most media I’d seen. In the opening bars, Phoebe was normalizing gay relationships for young kids–something I would never expect from the other characters. It was the best representation I had, and it was bad. Since I likely didn’t exist, I figured it didn’t make sense to come out.
It wasn’t until I had a daughter that I realized I needed to break that toxic cycle. I came out shortly after announcing my debut novel, Drew Leclair Gets a Clue, and–at the time–I felt safe to do so. These last few years, though, I’m learning that being who I am isn’t as safe as I thought. Anti-gay and anti-trans laws are being passed so fast that America has lost it’s spot as one of the safest places for the LGBTQIA+ community. Drag is being banned in many states. Organized efforts to remove queer books are spreading like wildfire. The core complaint? Sexual content.
When I found out that Drew Leclair Gets a Clue was subject to an active challenge in Alabama, I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was all the same. Due to Drew being featured on the American Library Association’s Rainbow List, it caught the attention of some parents who asked that it be removed from a public library. Also, at a school visit in the liberal SF Bay Are, I was told that one parent “expressed concern” about the content of my book. Neither library removed the book or changed their plans, but I was shaken. After all these years, are we still here? Do I have to be scared merely because I exist? And, if that’s true, what is it like for kids like me?
I’m a librarian as well as a kidlit author, so the freedom to read is important to me on multiple fronts. In my job, I fight for open and equitable access–not to bend people to my will, but to learn and decide what they value for themselves. Access to information shouldn’t scare people. But it does. There’s an immense amount of privilege at play when someone demands that certain types of people be erased from all forms of media. And that is exactly what comes from denying people the freedom to read. Erasure.
Unfortunately, not the band.
Funnily enough, despite being told I didn’t exist and being bombarded with heterosexual love stories for most of my life, I managed to persist in being bisexual. Because of course I did. A book doesn’t have the ability to turn people into anything. Nevertheless, conservative groups like Moms for Liberty insist that queer characters are part of a gay “agenda” to bend and shape people to our will.
I’ll admit it. I do have an agenda. It’s not to make everyone queer, of course. People can’t be “made” to be queer any more than they can be “made” to be cishet. Pride is about the opposite of indoctrination. It’s about acceptance. It’s about people being able to stand up and say who they are without fear. If I had access to even one story as a child that made me feel seen in all of my queer goodness, I wouldn’t have become more queer. I am who I am. But I would have felt safe to say who I was. Without fear, or shame. Without that burden of otherness hanging around me like the proverbial albatross.
When I wrote Drew Leclair Gets a Clue, and Drew Leclair Crushes the Case, all I set out to do was provide a book that I sorely needed as a kid–a book that validated my existence. Not a book that asserted that being queer was the only way to be–merely a book that said: these people exist in the world. Drew also isn’t only bi–she’s chronically ill, anxious, and apple-shaped–three other characteristics I never saw positively portrayed. Despite being all these things, however, Drew simply exists. She’s a regular kid solving a fun mystery, just like Nancy Drew would.
While most groups claim that removal from a library isn’t banning but “moving” it, I would argue against that. Most of these parents are claiming that the mere existence of gay characters labels a book as having “sexual content.” I find this to be the funniest part of my little queer detective being targeted by book banners. My main character, Drew, thinks that kissing is akin to exchanging snotty tissues. She’s not ready for that next step into adolescence, unlike her heterosexual friends. Is my character’s innocent cartoon crush on Rapunzel somehow as risqué as books like Fifty Shades of Grey? Who makes that call?
The one thing I can take away from this is that our freedom to read is inexorably tied up with each and every one of our other freedoms. I recently had the honor of speaking with the author and president of We Need Diverse Books, Ellen Oh. She said that most kids she talks to feel that book bans are low on the priority list. Climate change always ranks the highest among concerns, and for good reason. However, what Ellen has been telling kids (and what I vehemently agree with) is that book bans will erode all our freedoms from the ground up.
If we can’t access books, we can’t access knowledge itself. The further we get from open access to knowledge, the more we will see our other freedoms stripped away: bodily autonomy, climate justice, and so much more. If we don’t protect the freedom to read now, we will lose more than books. We will see entire communities silenced and erased–and our very rights will come next.
About Katryn Bury
Katryn Bury is the author of the middle grade mystery Drew Leclair Gets a Clue and the forthcoming sequel Drew Leclair Crushes the Case . A lifelong true crime nerd, she has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and criminology. Her short and serialized fiction can be found in Suspense Magazine and The Sleuth. By day, she is a library technician who is lucky enough to work with her target audience. She lives in Oakland, California, with her family and a vast collection of Nancy Drew mysteries.
