CHASKA, Minn. — The Carver County Library Board voted unanimously to keep "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe on its shelves Tuesday evening after a request was made earlier this month to remove the book.
The novel came to light at last month's library board meeting where resident Erin Busse came before the board to request a reconsideration for the book. At the Aug. 8 meeting, Busse called the book "pornographic." She did say in the meeting that she has not read the book fully, but the images were concerning to her.
Despite its status as the most challenged book of 2022, "Gender Queer" sits front and center at the Golden Valley Library in Hennepin County.
J.R. Gennett, Hennepin County Library's deputy director of support services said it's the library's mission to carry as wide of a variety of books as possible.
"The most important tool that we use in making our purchasing decisions is our collection development and management policy and that is a policy that's set by our citizen advisory library board," Gennett explained. "This is a group of 11 citizens who provide feedback on how to choose materials for our communities. We think a lot about what they're reading now, what people have read in the past, what's going on in the news."
That policy is also what guides what happens when books are challenged. Gennett said if a patron has a book they'd like to challenge, it starts with a conversation with a librarian. Then a request for reconsideration form can be filled out.
"We ask them: What is the book they're objecting to; why are they're objecting to it; did they read the whole book? That form goes to my team. We spend several months researching," Gennett said, "Read the book from front to back; why did we get it in the first place and is that reason still valid?"
If the patron still disagrees, they can bring the challenge to the library board. Gennett said during her tenure with Hennepin County, there has not been a board meeting that resulted in the removal of a book.
Gennett said removing books is taken extremely seriously, only because public libraries are part of the government.
"I'm a government employee. This would be the government preventing people from reading this book," Gennett said. "That is impeding on people's First Amendment rights and others could actually sue us for that."
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