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A tiny art banned book showcase

Posted on: October 7, 2024

By: ALAYSIA EZZARD

In honor of Banned Books Week, which was the last week of September, Maryland City at Russett Library featured miniature art inspired by challenged or banned books.

Darnice Jasper, branch director, organized the Banned Book Tiny Art Showcase because the library isn’t just a place about books, it’s also about expression, she said.

“Seeing people take a book that was really meaningful to them and to put it in art was really important to me,” Jasper said.

Christine Cherry chose “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, for her tiny art. An English teacher at Meade High School, Cherry read the book for the first time in graduate school, and now the book has found its way to her workplace.

“At our school, there is someone who consistently wants it banned, and has tried going directly to our administration,” Cherry said.“If a student is reading it where this person works, they … will take it away.”

Currently, the seniors at her school are reading the book, which sparked her idea for the art. 

Despite the push to have it banned, the students are allowed to keep reading it and other challenged books under the Freedom to Read Act, which the Maryland legislature passed in May.

The act requires libraries, schools and public buildings that receive state funding to adopt a policy that reflects the state’s standards. Reading material cannot be excluded because of “the origin, background, or views of a person who created the material” or “because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Banned Books Week started in 1982 in response to the rise in challenges of books in schools, libraries and bookstores. The week focuses on the value of unrestricted access to information

“The library is for everyone, and we want to make sure that people feel welcome here, and the way to do that is to have books that everyone can read and … access,” Jasper said.

The Banned Book Tiny Art Showcase will be open through October at Maryland City at Russett Library, 3501 Russett Common.

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