Brooklyn Shepherd and Kayla Ross work on their next projects in their art class.
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Brooklyn Shepherd and Kayla Ross work on their next projects in their art class.
The high school partnered with the Eudora Community Library again this year to showcase student’s rendition of banned book covers recreated in their own imaginative ways.
This year, about 20 Art 3 and 4 students researched banned books and created their own art to not only learn about the banned book, but take their own artistic approach on their covers.
“It’s a great kind of first project of the year for us,” art teacher AustinLauxman said. “There’s a lot of interpretation and there’s not a lot of rules.”
Kayla Ross used the project to reinvent the cover of “To Kill a Mockingbird” because Ross knew it was a story most people read in school.
Ross took symbolism from the book to make her cover. She combined an azalea field to symbolize how good can rise from evil, a rabid dog that symbolizes racism and a mockingbird to symbolize innocence.
Sofia Miller wanted the project to be whimsical and fun, and knew most people had heard of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”The project was first drawn on paper, and then scanned onto an iPad for Miller to color.
“It doesn’t take a lot for a book to get banned, just, like, the mention of magic,” Miller said. “You don’t have to ban a book just because it has communist views and opinions.”
Jaden Brooks did her project on “Mad Honey” and incorporated themes of the book by crafting a gavel covered in honey.
“It kind of showed me like they’re banned even for like the littlest reasons or challenged for the littlest reasons,” Brooks said.
Xin Clobes did her project on “Matilda.” She said the project taught her how many books really have been banned or challenged.
“You really don’t really know how many there until you look at them,” Clobes said.
Library Director Carol Wohlford said Banned Books Week is important because a library is a place for freedom of speech and expression.
“You can choose to read a book or choose not to read a book, but to ban books goes back to the times when books were burned, and people’s freedom to speak and talk and express was taken away,” Wohlford said.
The American Library Association’s preliminary data show a record surge of challenges in public libraries from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31. They reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles.
This is a 20% increase from the same time in 2022. Most of these challenges were to books either written by or about a person or color, or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, according to the American Library Association.
The most banned books last year were as follows:
“Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George Johnson
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
“Flamer” by Mike Curato
(tie)” Looking for Alaska” by John Green
(tie for 5) “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
“Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
“Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez
(tie) “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah Maas and “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins and “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson
The exhibit will be at the library until Saturday.
Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected]