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My 'library display' fail taught me I was just virtue signaling banned books
I caught myself last month putting Mildred D. Taylor books in a display case with the dust jackets facing out and realized I was patting myself on the back for showing banned books without ever talking to a single kid about why those stories matter.
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fiona_johnson823d agoMost Upvoted
Made a whole display for "The Bluest Eye" and realized I'd spent more time arranging the lighting than thinking about how to actually talk to students about race and beauty standards. Pretty covers don't make the conversations happen.
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emma_mitchell3d ago
Oh man, this one hit me right in the gut. I had a similar facepalm moment last year when I realized I was displaying "The Hate U Give" and "Maus" with these little curated signs but never actually asked a single kid what they thought about censorship or why those books got challenged. It's so easy to get caught up in the performative part (like, look at me being so woke with my dust jackets) and skip the actual messy conversations that matter. The real work is sitting down with a teenager and talking about why someone would want to ban a book about Jim Crow or the Holocaust, not just making a pretty display.
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