 That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, by Amanda Jones.
I had to read this memoir in short stretches, because it was infuriating. Amanda Jones, a school librarian in smalltown Louisiana, attended a town council meeting and made a speech against book banning. The speech is included in the book, and there's nothing radical in it. Two right-wing zealots zeroed in on her speech and decided to make her life a living hell. They smeared her all over social media, claiming she "wants to teach anal sex to 11-year-olds" and similar bizarre clams. She'd said nothing like that. In fact, in her speech she noted that the library already had a "reconsideration" process for requesting that a book be moved from the children's section to teen, or from teen to adult, and she agreed with that process. She's now dealing with harassment, death threats, and attempts to get her fired. She writes some pretty vulnerable stuff about how deeply the harassment campaign affected her. The hardest part was that some friends "didn't want to get involved" by supporting her, and some acquaintances even joined the abuse on social media. The harassers talk a lot about Christianity, but apparently think themselves exempt from the commandment against false witnessing. She's now suing them for defamation; so far the lawsuit is still ongoing. The last part is a "what you can do to fight book-banning" section for community members and educators. Trigger warnings for cruelty. 52 Book Club Challenge: Provokes strong emotion.
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