New Hampshire: “Bill Derided by Authors as Enabling Book Banning Heads to Ayotte’s Desk”

From the New Hampshire Bulletin: 

If New Hampshire adopts a law to make it easier to remove books from school libraries, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult could be one of them.

The 2011 novel, set in the fictional Upper Valley New Hampshire town of Sterling, depicts a deadly school shooting committed by a student who was bullied for his sexual orientation. It has been banned in more than 50 school districts; many of those removals were driven by its inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

This year, Picoult and other authors are warning that the proposed New Hampshire bill, which is heading to Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s desk, amounts to a book banning bill and should be vetoed. Those pushing for the bill say it is targeted only at obscene content with no educational value.

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Lara Prescott, the author of the 2019 novel “The Secrets We Kept,” about the CIA’s plot to smuggle Boris Pasternak’s “Dr. Zhivago” out of the U.S.S.R., noted that her book was banned from publication in China due to a love story between two women.

“It’s hard to believe we’re seeing echoes of that in our own country today: teachers and librarians being criminalized for the books in their classrooms,” Picoult said at the press conference.

She added: “I want my son to grow up exposed to all kinds of stories, perspectives, and voices,”

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The bill will make its way to Ayotte’s desk in the coming weeks. At that point, she can sign it, veto it, or allow it to pass without her signature.

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See Also: EveryLibrary Urges Governor Ayotte to Veto HB 324 in New Hampshire (via EL)

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