Florida book ban surge got you down? Here's how a free app has you covered close to home

Having problems finding books in Florida that have been banned in the local library? It just got a little easier.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to amplifying the value of libraries, announced Thursday that they have partnered with the nonprofit library-support organization Lyrasis and The Palace Project to launch The Banned Book Club.

This program makes ebook and audiobook versions of books that have been banned in your area available for free, temporary download through a library e-reader app.

"At DPLA, our mission is to ensure access to knowledge for all and we believe in the power of technology to further that access," said John S. Bracken, executive director of Digital Public Library of America. "Today book bans are one of the greatest threats to our freedom, and we have created The Banned Book Club to leverage the dual powers of libraries and digital technology to ensure that every American can access the books they want to read."

There are already library apps available, such as Libby and Hoopla, which allow you to borrow books and other media and download them directly to your mobile devices with a valid library card. The Banned Book Club works with the Palace app (available for iOS and Android), which allows you to choose from multiple library catalogs. The Banned Book Club is now one of those catalogs, and it changes depending on where you are.

Once you get a free virtual Banned Book Club library card, the Palace app (with your permission) checks where you are at the moment and presents a catalog consisting only of the books that have been banned from the libraries in your community. A quick check in central Florida found oft-challenged books such "The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, "It Gets Better" by Dan Savage and Terry Miller, "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson, "We Were Eight Years in Power" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe, "Beloved" and "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, "How to be an Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi and many more fiction and non-fiction books.

"Our mission is to provide anyone who is in a library that has banned a book access to the digital version for free," the club's website says. "Every time a book is banned from a library, we're going to help put it right back."

You can check out up to five titles at a time from The Banned Book Club and you have 21 days to read them. Not all banned books are available in ebook form. You must be at least 13 years old to get a card and check out books.

Florida sees rush of challenges to books in school, public libraries

A concentrated effort by conservative groups across the country has led to a wave of challenged books nationwide, hitting a record high in 2022 that was nearly double the year before, according to the American Library Association.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "The last two years have been exhausting, frightening, outrage-inducing."

Challenges to books in school libraries have surged in Florida to the second-highest in the nation thanks to the conservative group Moms for Liberty, which began in Florida as a protest against school mask mandates but quickly grew to become a nationwide force in education politics. Moms for Liberty has worked to influence school board elections and challenge books based on what they consider objectionable content, targeting classroom material and books teaching LGBTQ issues, gender studies and race issues.

Opponents claim these efforts are part of a coordinated, ideological attempt to erase certain perspectives from classrooms. George M. Johnson, author of "All Boys Aren't Blue," has described the wave as conservatives' "crusade to remove LGBTQ+ education from schools." A study of book challenges by ABC Action News in Tampa found that most of the challenges were from the same prolific people, at least one of whom had never read the books.

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Confusion, uncertainty and fear of prosecution caused many school districts to pull books from school libraries and teacher classrooms at the beginning of the year to await their review by a trained district employee, as required by vaguely defined rules passed in 2022 that gave parents and county residents more access to the book selection process and banned instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

This led to images of empty libraries, videos of covered classroom bookshelves and accusations of widespread book banning in Florida schools. DeSantis called these accusations a hoax, saying that Florida had not banned any books. Technically this is true, but the effects of the laws still result in students not having access to them.

Hoax or no, the Florida Department of Education is preparing to release a list of books that have been removed from schools throughout the state as a guide for districts to use when considering book purchases and material review. Critics say it may increase the practice of reviewing and removing books without a formal challenge, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

And a new law went into effect July 1 restricting the use of books containing "sexual conduct" under definitions loose enough to ban Shakespeare and many books needed to take the College Board’s Advanced Placement literature exam and dual-enrollment classes.

Banned books available elsewhere in Florida

While books that have been banned, removed or restricted in Florida are easy enough to find online and at bookstores, many of which have set up special "banned books" displays, not everyone has the spare cash to pick them up.

In 2022, the Brooklyn Public Library offered free online library cards to anyone ages 13-21 anywhere in the U.S., allowing them access to their full ebook libraries and learning databases. Any books on their Books Unbanned List are always available without waiting. Thousands of people have signed up.

Groups such as Voters of Tomorrow have organized giveaways, distributing books such as “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” “The Bluest Eye” and Margaret Atwood's “The Handmaid’s Tale.” A teacher in Palm Bay started a fundraiser to buy and hand out books challenged in Florida which turned into the nonprofit organization Foundation 451. Members of the DC-based Transformative Justice Coalition and several partnering advocacy groups, including the Florida NAACP, went mobile and took their "Stay Woke Florida" tour around the state in June this year, giving out books, registering voters and holding marches in protest of DeSantis' policies they said targets people of color and the LGBTQ community.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Banned Book Club lists, allows readers to download challenged books