CNN’s Anderson Cooper speaks with author Jodi Picoult about what some are calling a book ban in Florida by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Twenty of her books have been removed in one Florida school district. #CNN #News
Hear from author who had 20 of her books banned in Florida school district
How long before they try to ban Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and The Diary of Anne Frank?
@Marc Lucido you are clearly trying to move the goal post – and failing.
@Sisu Guillam Yeah I don’t think so. Out of 23 county school districts 179 books were banned for sexually explicit content. It is you who tries moving the goal post and pretend this is book burning of intellectually valuable books and not just smut.
@Marc Lucido yep
@Sisu Guillam Be my guest
“The secret to freedom is in educating the people, whereas the secret to tyranny is keeping them ignorant.”
Robespierre
@gacj2010 … what ever you wish for, they never remain that way – unless they die before time. So let *them* chose, when to leave their childhood behind.
@9751matt Is Trump still under audit…ooops my bad. I meant. Is he still lying about being under audit?
“What you are seeing…..is not what’s happening.”
George Orwell 1984
– Tucker Carlson 2023
Donald Trump: ‘What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening’
Trump said the same damn thing go figure.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire
“I have nothing to declare but that my bum hurts”. Oscar Wilde
Voltaire: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
Voltaire’s writings on jews like Jodi Picoult are even more interesting.
@FirstIsa The comment is nonsense. A child, or a playwright, or a film maker, or a scientist, or almost anyone, can make someone believe something absurd but that doesn’t mean they can make you commit atrocities.
How may atrocities have you committed or have you never ever believed absurdities?
You do realise that it would be absurd to say you never believed absurdities because that would mean that you know all truth. Are you going to claim that and not see how absurd it is?
Then will you go on to commit atrocities?
It’s the single belief that it can’t be done, that allows it to be done. That’s all it takes to tyrannize a single faculty of the soul; the belief it can’t be done. Remember…
“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire
I don’t read novels but my exposure to them and their authors came from a part time job at an Indigo Books to pay for college. Jodi Picoult is a name I’ve recognized forever but this is the first time I’ve seen her face and heard her voice. She’s not a huge presence outside the writing world but she’s pretty accomplished.
The LGBTQ community is merely the first group these Florida books bans are targeting. Mrs. Picoult is now saying her books with zero romance are being banned as well.
America May be the greatest country in the world but that also means we are great at housing unspeakably evil people and they vote.
@Jon Gunson – sorry my bad. Guess she’s more than accomplished, she’s an A-Lister outside the writing world too and only people who read novels know that. Not even former bookstore employees don’t know that if they don’t read. We good?
@MilkByCow We are fine, and I apologise for my ill-mannered remarks. Former bookseller myself, come to that.
@grandma k. 😃
He’s not banning any books.
“Unlimited power in the hands of limited men always leads to cruelty.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“Moms for Liberty”… Ha. How rich. Apparently, the “liberty” involved is that to ban anything they disapprove of for whatever reason (if you can even call it such). These folks are always oblivious to irony. Or they’re just deeply cynical.
You belong on the registry.
“Moms for Liberty” is just the modern-day version of “The Daughters of the Confederacy.”
They call there self christain
@Randy Pickett facts
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking and to annihilate truth.”
Garry Kasparov
Like only really 2 gndrs
i.e., CNN in a nutshell.
I remember those wonderful heart wrenching books in my school library that were serials called “I was there…” reintroducing children to real world difficulties, such as wars, the evolution of America, the Underground Railroad, all of the wars. The Dunkirk evacuation was the most poignant for me. These books were meant for mature children to read through the voice of a child’s view of occurrences. They shaped my character and honor system. I never took my peaceful life for granted. I am 61 years old. I wish I was as brave as my heroes and heroines were in their narratives.
I was there Titanic
@Teresa Ellis That young lol
Any parent who puts a cell phone in their kids hands needs to shut up about what their kid might find in the library.
Excellent point!!I Wow!!
@Jules Nagbunga I assure you, they can find far worse content online with their smartphones, they can meet up with people they don’t know on social media like the girl they just found locked in a shed in North Carolina. Most of this is just being angry for the sake of being angry.
@Darryl Dunmore Naa. Not so much. You have zero statistic to back up that nonsensical claim.
That thought crossed my mind!! They’re worried about books in schools… What age are they living in?? Books should be preparing them for what they’ll eventually see online. This Puritan attitude doesn’t make it go away. The fact is human beings are different. The line is crossed when any action causes harm. 🤍
In high school, I had to read a book about Hiroshima and one about the Holocaust. Great books that told the story of a person who was actually there and suffered as a result of these events. I’m a boomer and I have lived my life not the least bit tainted by those books. I am glad I know what people went through and I am against those events ever happening again. It impacts my voting to this day which means I would never vote for DeSantis or Trump.
@Green Bay it the vat majority of stuff being banned is not sexually explicit, and that is the problem
If it was just a handful of books that were being banned because of that reason, you won’t have the outrage. But most are banned for having LGBT or BIPOC characters portrayed in a positive manner, or simply for calling out bigotry
I was in school in the 1940’s & 50’s and we didn’t have controversial books. But my family read and so I read about Hiroshima, met the survivors and read lots of Holocaust books. I
also read “The Well of Loneliness” a book about Lesbians. I read Catcher in the Rye and the Henry Miller books that were not allowed into the US. I didn’t get these books at school. But
I did get them and a lot of other books.
Oh, you said were in high school?
Then your diatribe about never voting for them means nothing. This is about materials found in GRADE school libraries.
Talk about ignorance….
@Teresa Ellis WTF!!!
Reading has opened the world for me for over 50 years. I wish that for my children, grandchildren and all children. Glad we have public libraries to fill the gap left by school censorship.
@Beck I really hope not either. Banning a book in a school or public library should only be done in the most extreme and very few cases but sadly I think it is coming to public libraries in red states eventually.
@Marc Lucido I see what you did there !
Sorry. But libraries are being closed ( defunded) and also censored.
@Marc Lucido there not reading it For a fact I can see your for banning books . I say hell no to banning books We had them in the library When I was young
Why is it that every time you hear about some group that has the words “for liberty” in the name (like “Mums for Liberty”), it turns out that what they love most is to infringe on the liberty of others? Quite amazing.
I have noticed and questioned that myself.
😂 That’s true!
Why has a Mom for Liberty more power to decide what kids read than their parents? Where’s the liberty in that?
If an organization’s name includes the word “liberty,” “patriot,” or “freedom,” I always assume they’re against it.
Pro tip: The parents overwhelmingly voted in DeSantis.
Not once has history remembered book banners as the good guys.
That is quite literally not true. No one is banning books entirely, we’re banning certain books from kids. Not older teens or young adults, kids.
You can’t just say ‘nothing is off the table’ and put ANYTHING in a grade school library. You’d sound unhinged.
Removing a book from a elementary school library isn’t banning it😂
@Dean Fiora true
@9751matt If history is any indication, removing books from libraries is just the beginning. The Holocaust did not begin with Auschwitz.
Her books are NOT romance. They are challenging and thought-provoking. I doubt that woman who banned them has ever read a book and she has no right to destroy the happiness of those who actually know how to read and know how to use their brain.
Her topics often touch upon grim stuff like school shootings and other things not exactly age appropriate for kids younger then 10. They were in grade school libraries.
95% of everything you think your child should not see, hear or read are on your child’s phone, readily available, including the contents of all the books you witness being taken from shelves. Your child needs your attention, your empathy and your time, not your own fears. Books are the road to critical thinking, which is the single most important skill they will need in life.
@Patti C From the reports, its about kids younger then teens.
@Patti C Not it’s not. There are a lot of books in middle schools that kids should not be reading. I’ve seen parents and kids, not teens, read from books that have very mature subject matter like romanticizing sexually abusive relationships.
@Chaserbeastofblades That should be up to the parents. Not YOU!!
@23merlino 🙏
@Patti C 🙏
Sir, my family’s experience during our six years whilst I worked in the US, was that school children are treated as if they were several years less mature than children are viewed as being elsewhere in the western world. My oldest was given English novels to read in grade 6 which he’d read at grade 3 before our move. We left, partly because we wanted our kids to grow with a facility for critical thinking and initiative.
All I know from experience is that Im glad that my kids are grown. One is hopefully going to get Au. citizenship and hopefully I can get my other kid to move there as well. I am tired of the sh*tshow American is becoming. #thankstreasenoustRump
@K. P. This part is completely understandable. American politics are exhausting.
I am not sure Australia is that immigrant-friendly now. I am under the impression, the current system is tailored for CCP millionaires but the common sentiment is against it. Particularly among those of European descent.
But it’s a different story
Good luck with your kid’s citizenship.
Ive lived in a few different countries, I consider our American kids real kids while kids in other countries are like aspiring adults. Our teenagers dont mature until theyre 25-30. This is exactly the reason I call a 20 year old, a one year old adult, because theyre still basically a child with a year being not a child, but still basically a child, for some years yet. American teenager phenomena.
Just have to look at the kids handling their booze in a pub elsewhere in the world at 16 while our 16 year olds are blacking out on 5 beers, waking up on a baseball diamond. Just plain pitiful
I was severely abused by my mom. I taught myself to read as an escape from my horrible life. I would read anything to escape. This is so damaging in so many ways! Kids reading nowadays is a really good thing! This is nothing but to keep children ignorant so they become good ignorant voters when they grow up.
It’s absolutely incredible that adults think this is how to behave.