Heartstopper and The Color Purple among nearly 400 books facing school ban in Iowa
374 books are set to be banned in schools in the Urbandale Community School District in Iowa. LGBTQ+ favourites Heartstopper and The Color Purple are among the nearly 400 books targeted by the book ban.
This follows Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signing ‘education reform bills’ in May, including Senate File 496 (SF496). SF496, which parallels Florida’s notorious ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, was enforced from 1 July.
The bill prohibits teaching on issues of gender identity or sexual orientation up to the seventh grade. Other books on the list include children’s picture books, books with LGBTQ+ themes, and American classics such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms.
School officials are unsure how to follow SF496 and of which other books require removal under the bill, reports BookRiot. READ MORE: LGBTQ+ authors hit back as US school book bans pick up Jennifer Konfrst, Democratic Iowa House Majority Leader, also told the publication that the bill “was passed for political headlines instead of students’ best interest.” The district released a statement explaining that: “We had to take a fairly broad interpretation of the law, knowing that if our interpretation was too finite, teachers and administrators.
