There are new concerns just beginning to be realized connected to book banning. On top of the wrongness of book banning (you can read some of my posts about it here), bookstores are now worried how this will impact them.
In a new article, Texas booksellers have expressed their concern with the new requirements to analyze and rate books for “sexually explicit” content.
Additionally, with some of these new restrictions, certain books may not be able to be sold any longer which puts bookstores in a predicament. They may begin to lose large amounts of money and many booksellers and publishers in the state say the law is “anti-business.”
According to Valerie Koehler, the owner of the small bookshop Blue Willow Bookshop,
The cost would be formidable. It could possibly put us out of business.
What happens if bookstores don’t do this? Or do it wrong?
According to the article, they will essentially get the death penalty. This means that schools will no longer be able to buy from them. This means that the entire responsibility for reviewing every book – them and making sure the rating is accurate is on all the vendors.
Not only is this a behemoth of an effort, but it may be impossible for certain companies to do. This may be because they do not have the appropriate records and manpower to be able to review the books. Additionally, what exactly does “sexually explicit” mean? That can be quite a
subjective thing depending on the person.
Small book stores will be massively impacted by this and may not be able to meet the demands which will further hurt small businesses.
In a world where companies like Amazon are already taking over, and most likely will be able to comply with these laws, further restrictions like this do more damage.
If you live in Texas, find your representatives and reach out! Tell them to stop this nonsense! Parents have every right to not allow their own child to read a book, but should not be able to stop a whole district/state from reading certain books.
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With the book bans, book censoring and book restricting going on right now, you may be asking how you are able to help. I wanted to share a great post written by the Authors Guild over on United Against Book Bans.
Each parent has every right to ask a teacher not to assign a book to their child. They have every right to make that decision for their own child. Not for other children and other families.
