Write an expository five-paragraph academic essay for high school English class level about this thesis question: 

“How does the act of banning books in US affect their popularity and ability to reach readers?” 

Use the PEEL structure and the following key words and phrases: 

“What are the book bans and how do they work in the USA? Soviet Union, North Korea and Iran. Gulag, prison, death sentence 

Different States vary in amount of book bans 

Who does initiate the process of banning and for what reasons? 

Is it constitutional? 

Temporary spike in sales, but is it worth it? 

Free advertisement 

The “Streisand Effect” 

451 Fahrenheit 

Attempts to prohibit are counterproductive for dissemination of information 

Books that are banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. 

The themes targeted are predominantly about LGBTQ+ issues, Black history, and women’s empowerment etc, war and about growing up 

“Because of those bans, Hopkins said she has received a lot of press attention and seen a recent spike in sales. But in years past, when her books were banned and there was less media interest, sales dried up and her royalty checks shrunk.” (Ellen Hopkins told Marketplace) 

“School libraries are a big part of our market,” she said. “So, when they’re not allowed to repurchase them, then of course it’s going to affect book sales.”  

“Paid school visits were a very large part of my income, maybe a quarter to a third of my annual income,” said Mike Curato, an author and illustrator.   

The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. 

The effect exemplifies psychological reactance, in which the attempt to hide information instead makes it more interesting to seek out and propagate. 

Publicity 

The Streisand effect is an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, they are significantly more motivated to acquire and spread it. 

"Image 3850" had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand's lawsuit, two of those being by Streisand's attorneys.[18] Public awareness of the case led to more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the following month. 

This is because we humans, by nature, are curious and rebellious; we strive to know more, and we often rebel when we’re told what we can and cannot do - especially when it concerns our right to knowledge.  

The majority of book bans across the U.S. have been filed by just 11 people, including two prolific challengers in Florida, Bruce Friedman and Vicki Baggett. 

Is it democratic? 

appealing to parents seeking to protect their children from inappropriate content.  

This kind of restriction has been deemed illegal in the past. In 2002, a federal court in Arkansas ruled that requiring a permission slip to check out Harry Potter books from a school library was unconstitutional. 

Used for a political gain before  

Further, a lot of the books being removed from Florida school libraries are not the result of a formal challenge. In Escambia County, for example, Baggett helped convince the school board to order a review of all books in school and classroom libraries for compliance with HB 1069. That process resulted in the removal of 2800 books from the shelves, including three dictionaries, eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of The Guinness Book of World Records. Also removed were classic texts like Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. The school district is in the process of performing a second review of all 2800 books to determine whether the removals would be permanent. 

Taking risks, maybe not worth it for up-and-coming authors instead of established bestselling writers, suppresses freedom of speech, maybe authors feel need to be more very and adapt their language or topics, may affect creative freedom and freedom of expression, and final product 
Backlash 

As book bans have spread across the country and some librarians advocate for students’ rights to access a wide range of information, students themselves don’t seem to notice when a book is challenged in their district, according to more than half of school library staff. (Maybe you just don’t know they are challenged, unless they are huge bestsellers already, makes harder to discover) 

Is it more positive than negative, does the positives outweigh the negatives? What is the price we pay for those positives? Should we be glad for it and secretly happy when it happens? 

PEN America 

Although the majority don’t seem to notice, third get more interested 

Is reading a good thing? Is civilized society a reading society? 

Just one percent supports the ban – does it reflect the need to protect them? 
 

Religious beliefs A small number of library personnel said they have chosen not to stock books about those topics because of their religious beliefs and have referred students to public libraries in those cases, according to the survey responses. 

Should personal religious convictions stand in the way of others' right to explore the world? 

Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) has been banned for its graphic depictions of war. Teen best-seller The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky) has been banned for its descriptions of sexual behavior and alcohol and drug use. The award-winning young adult novel Dear Martin (<PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>) was removed from the curriculum at a Missouri high school because it dealt with racial profiling by police. 

Is there such a thing as bad language? Can there be more in it, besides the swear words? 

Books banned for racial slurs (depicting historical reality) 

Book banning is a form of censorship, suppression of freedom of speech 

Controversial 

Moms for Liberty 

The Southern Poverty Law Center noted that the organization has affiliated with the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist organization. 

Christian Ziegler told The Washington Post in October 2021 that he had "been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me." 

Stirs up strong feelings 

The group's 2023 annual conference in June featured Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Moms For Liberty (M4L) was founded in January 2021 claiming it will “organize, educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights.” 

“Don’t Say Gay/Trans” legislation. 

—A June 2023 Vice News investigation reported multiple Moms for Liberty chapters’ connections to the Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist group with factions throughout the country 

—In June 2023, Moms for Liberty’s Hamilton County chapter launched a newsletter that quoted Adolph Hitler on the cover. 

Hitler was fan of banning books himself 

Black history, literature and gender identity in public schools, the Southern Poverty Law Center has concluded that a dozen so-called "parental rights" groups behind the movement are extremist. 

The SPLC report compares Moms for Liberty and similar organizations of today to pro-segregationist parent groups that flourished in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. 

a Florida Moms for Liberty activist advocated for separating LGBTQ students into "specialized" classes "like for example children with autism, Down Syndrome".[57] 

Psychological reactance can be better explained as the idea that an item will be wanted more if people are told they cannot have it 

A Virginia woman dedicated herself to challenging at least one book per week — an effort that has caused a schism in her community as well as hours of unpaid labor for school librarians.  

is depiction of sex in fiction bad for children? 

Should kids be guarded? 

School book challenges reached historic highs in America each year since 2021 time and time again 

nationwide found that 60 percent of all challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from 11 adults, each of whom objected to dozens — sometimes close to 100 — of books in their districts. 

“This whole effort has been a waste of money, time and resources,” school board member Nicole Cole said. (The district said it has not tracked the money, time and work it spent responding to Petersen’s requests, although a top library staffer estimated that a team of 11 people spent 40 hours per week on her challenges last school year.)” 

Use indirect quotation and paraphrasing 

Sources: 

Heinz College. (2023). Book bans may have unintended consequences in increasingly polarized United States. Carnegie Mellon University. Date? https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2023/October/book-bans-may-have-unintended-consequences-in-increasingly-polarized-united-states  

Karre, Andrew. (2022). No, actually book bans don’t sell books. Minnesota Reformer. 2022, April 20. https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/04/20/no-actually-bans-dont-sell-books-opinion/ 

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/20/costs-of-book-bans/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2024/08/24/a-psychologist-explains-the-streisand-effect--when-censorship-fails/ 

https://popular.info/p/the-tide-turns-on-florida-book-bans 

https://popular.info/p/meet-the-florida-english-teacher 

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/why-your-kid-should-read-banned-books 

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-students-are-reacting-to-book-bans-in-their-schools/2023/06 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moms_for_Liberty 

https://glaad.org/gap/moms-liberty/ 

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/07/1180486760/splc-moms-for-liberty-extremist-group 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_psychology 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/28/virginia-frequent-school-book-challenger-spotsylvania/