Exuberantly Exhuming McCarthy: Confronting the Widespread Attacks on Intellectual Freedom in the United States.

On the same day that Russia launched its genocidal invasion of Ukraine, the I New York Times i decided to publish an editorial written by a professional far right provocateur who attacked libraries for providing books that represent the true diversity of human experience and identity.[1] As with so many critics of access to information, his objections were over access to very specific kinds of information; he used emotive but malleable terms like "woke" to critique librarians who help patrons understand systemic structures that promote inequities and injustices. In the intervening time, the American Library Association (ALA; [3]) has revealed 2021 to be the worst year for challenges to and bans of books since such challenges have been tracked. The beloved librarian who just months ago was valiantly facilitating curbside book pickups and running outdoor distanced-learning activities for children in the community, despite the pandemic, is now a monster corrupting and "grooming" the children with forbidden books. As the ALA ([3]) revealed in its I State of American Libraries i report, 1,597 books had been challenged by the end of 2021 with proposed bans, an exponential increase from previous years' numbers. [Extracted from the article]