Gen Z vs. The Banned Book Plague

shelbyahickman
Mar 6
5 min read

Like Fahrenheit 451 IRL

By: Shelby Hickman

Florida is number one!

This sounds great, right? Let me elaborate– Florida ranks first in the country in book bans.

As of October 2024, Florida saw over 4,500 bans across 33 counties. From recent, viral releases, such as Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, to literary classics like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, dozens of books are being stripped from public schools’ shelves across the state.

This issue is not limited to just Florida. Book bans are on the rise all over the country and are increasing each year. During the 2022-2023 school year, 3,362 bans occurred across the nation, but this number nearly tripled one year later, according to PEN America. Like the flu in a college dorm, a spilled glass of red wine and sorority gossip on UF YikYak– book bans are spreading fast.

These numbers will likely continue to rise unless we take action. Someone old and wise (probably) once said to leave the world a better place than you found it. So as members of Gen Z, it’s up to us to fight for the next generation. The members of the University of Florida Bateman Team are doing just that.

In conjunction with EveryLibrary, the six-person team is running the ‘Support is Overdue’ campaign to fight against book bans and library funding cuts. The campaign is part of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Bateman Case Study Competition, a national competition where competing schools execute a full public relations campaign for a real client. Although the UF team is shooting for their third straight first place victory, the message that their campaign is sending hits home for the team members.

“Growing up, I had always hoped that people would have more access to books, more freedom to read, more access to resources,” said Ceci Edelberg, a fourth-year public relations student and member of the team. “It makes me really sad and upset that we’re going backwards.”

I can’t speak for everyone, but I would much rather learn from something that provides entertainment value than a textbook. Finding a character to latch onto and immersing yourself into a different world for a little while is a joy that only books can bring. I don’t know who I would be if I never walked in the shoes of Katniss Everdeen for three books, and quite frankly I don’t want to.

For Edelberg, a US immigrant from Argentina, one title that stuck with her is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.

“I had no recollection of race relations or the issue of police brutality having grown up out of the country,” she said, “It was such a privilege to learn about those things from a book and not from personal experience.”

Stories like these create empathetic, caring members of society. They take us out of our personal bubbles and transport us into the shoes of someone else, whether fictional or real. They help us to better understand each other and invoke emotions we may have never tapped into before.

“[The Hate U Give] is one of those books that makes you feel uncomfortable, but I think it’s the right kind of uncomfortable,” she said, “It’s one of those books that completely changed my perspective and made me grow as a person.”

Without access to diverse reading materials, children miss out on the opportunity to have productive discussions about complex topics. Bateman team member Addie Welch brought up how books like To Kill a Mockingbird contain important educational concepts and truths about life, but told through the lens of literature.

“[Reading is] how history doesn’t repeat itself,” she said. “It's how we become informed.”

Without access and exposure to a variety of topics and point of views at school, children in Florida are going to fall behind the rest of the country. The Bateman team’s campaign follows a horror theme because inaccessibility to resources is a very scary thing, especially for young, developing minds.

During my research for this story, I stumbled upon a Tampa Bay Times story titled “Florida is No.1 in book censorship, No. 47 in SAT scores.” Talk about terrifying.

Preventing safe access to books and resources isn’t going to stop people from learning about the topics that the bans are “protecting” them from. When there's a will, there’s a way. There’s also access to the internet given that we live in the era of ‘The iPad Kid’. If someone, especially a kid, wants to know something, they will stop at nothing until they do. As a curious child turned journalist, I am living, breathing proof of this.

The Internet is a vast and uncertain place filled with misinformation and clickbait content. I would prefer that my little brother learns about the Civil Rights Movement from a book rather than an Instagram Reels comment section, but that's just me I guess.

“They always say the strict parent makes a sneaky child. This is the same thing,” said Drew Okun of the Bateman team. “You’ll have people accessing information in unsafe ways… or you’ll have people going into things very blindly and I don’t think that’ll end well.”

To stand up to them, Okun urged people to go to the hearings where books are challenged, continue to read banned books and during elections, vote against library funding cuts. You don’t have to be a part of a campaign or organization to show your support.

It’s not only Bateman team members that have deep connections to literature. My dear friend and fellow UF student, Lauren McDonough, like many others I’ve spoken to, shares this sentiment.

“I have so many fond memories related to reading, and believe that storytelling and books are the closest we can get to magic as human beings,” she said. “So many books I've read have changed my life by opening my eyes to things I'd never considered beforehand, or by allowing me to escape from reality for a while.”

Personally, it breaks my heart to see the books that I read growing up being removed from schools. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Looking For Alaska, even Pinkalicious was banned in Tennessee for crying out loud. If this keeps up, grade school reading lists are going to be comprised of IKEA furniture assembly guides and the Cheesecake Factory’s menu, until someone finds a problem with those, too.

This is why it's up to us as members of Gen Z, the next generation of leaders in this country, to stand up for our younger siblings and our future kids. Regardless of if you’re a Florida resident or from another state, book bans and library funding cuts have a trickle down effect that will impact everyone.

And to all my writers out there, don’t let this scare you into silence. Keep writing. Keep telling your stories. Someone out there wants to read them, so don’t let the voices of a loud minority overpower yours.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t built by just one person. This is going to take time and it’s going to take all of us. If you were looking for a sign to do something, this is it. Not to sound like a corny sci-fi movie, but the future is in your hands. What are you going to do with it?

Shelby Hickman is a third year sports and media journalism student minoring in public relations. She loves football, Mexican food and her corgi, Cheddar, amongst many other things. In her free time, you’ll find her working out, cooking for her friends, reading or volunteering at the animal shelter. Her favorite banned book is Looking For Alaska by John Green.