Lt. Gov. Zuckerman Goes on a 'Banned Books Tour' 

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• Hannah Feuer
• Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman reading from Beloved by Toni Morrison

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman practices a straightforward approach to countering book bans across the country: Read from the books and talk about them.

"In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard," Zuckerman read from Toni Morrison's Beloved with a poetic cadence to an audience of about 30 gathered at Phoenix Books in Rutland on August 23. "Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 novel, based on the true story of a woman who escaped from slavery and killed her daughter to prevent her from becoming enslaved again, was banned in at least 11 schools during the 2021-22 academic year.

Zuckerman has been making the rounds of bookstores and libraries across Vermont since late June, hosting discussions and reading excerpts from Beloved and And Tango Makes Three — a children's book by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson about two male penguins who create a family together. He said he hopes the "banned books tour," which continues through the fall, will send a message that the practice is not welcome, in Vermont or beyond.

No books have successfully been removed from Vermont schools in this latest wave of banning, but "it can happen anywhere," Zuckerman said. The first half of the 2022-23 school year saw almost 1,500 instances of schools banning books across the country — a 28 percent increase over the previous six months, according to the Index of School Book Bans compiled by PEN America, a New York City-based nonprofit that champions the freedom of expression.

Given the media coverage that the bans have attracted, Zuckerman said one purpose of his tour is to ensure that the public conversation "is not only about the side saying we need to thwart access to information. The founding principles of our country are about information, the full breadth of information, the truth — whether we like the truth or we don't like the truth."

Abby Bennett came to the Rutland event with her daughter, a rising seventh grader who loves to read. Bennett said her daughter has enjoyed reading a number of frequently banned books, including A.S. King's Attack of the Black Rectangles, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. "Everybody should be allowed to read whatever they want," Bennett said.

Different guests join Zuckerman at each location to read their own selection of banned books. In Rutland, Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area Branch of the NAACP, read from Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. Rep. William Notte (D-Rutland) read from the graphic novel Drama by Raina Telgemeier, highlighting an excerpt in which one of the characters comes out as gay.

"[The book] contains images of two boys kissing, and for some people, that is all that's required for them to think no children should have access," Notte said. Meanwhile, he added, "There are children who desperately need to see books like this and recognize themselves in it."

Roughly a quarter of the books banned between July and December 2022 contain LGBTQ+ characters or themes, according to PEN America. Other banned books cover topics of race, sex, abortion, teen pregnancy, puberty, violence, abuse or death. Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina top PEN America's list with the most book bans in the nation.

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While Vermont isn't on that list, Zuckerman noted that candidates for local school boards have run on a platform of keeping critical race theory out of curricula. (Critical race theory, which centers the idea that racism is systemic, is a graduate-level academic framework and not a fixture of K-12 education.) There have also been instances of Vermont parents pressuring schools to remove books — such as a 2022 controversy in Canaan school libraries over three books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Bans in other states also affect Vermont authors. Hartland resident and young adult author Jo Knowles has had five of her books — Lessons From a Dead Girl, Jumping Off Swings, See You at Harry's, Pearl and Read Between the Lines — challenged in Florida, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Texas. Sometimes told only that her books contain "inappropriate material," the author suspects that many of the attempted bans have to do with her inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters. Knowles will join Zuckerman at his September 13 stop at Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock.

"There's this myth that, like, 'Oh, your book is banned; you're probably going to sell a ton of books now,'" Knowles said. "This is not the case ... You're asking librarians and teachers to take a really big risk now to get those books back into their schools and libraries, because they're facing parents who are really hostile."

Vermont has not escaped the culture wars. Zuckerman's tour caught the attention of the conservative political organization VT Grassroots, which organized an August 17 event at the Elks Lodge in Barre where speakers discussed "the relevance of critical race theory," according to the organization's website. Moms for Liberty, a self-described "parental rights" organization that campaigns against school curricula discussing race, gender and sexuality, cosponsored the event.

VT Grassroots leader Ellie Martin reached out to Moms for Liberty, a national organization that has no Vermont chapters. Zuckerman's book tour is "promoting unbridled access to pornography and critical race theory material in our schools and building support to keep 'radical' parents desiring age-appropriate restrictions on educational material away from Vermont school boards," Martin wrote on Facebook as part of a post promoting the Barre event. She did not respond to Seven Days' requests for an interview.

"These groups come in; they're very, very loud; and they pressure the school board members, [who] think, Wait a minute, this community is loudly opposed to this, when, in fact, the balance is often not that way," Zuckerman said. "But [Moms for Liberty] partly came — and I apologize for this — because I'm doing these readings."

Zuckerman said he welcomes conversations with those who disagree with him, such as supporters of book bans whom he encountered at his stops in Manchester and Brattleboro. He said he reminds concerned parents that many of the hot-button books in the news are simply options in the school library, not required class readings. He also asks them to imagine hypotheticals: What if the Bible were banned for its sex scenes? What if someone proposed banning all books that mention guns?

"[Parents] may not want their kids to have certain books, but they already have that right to communicate with their teacher or ... librarian about that," Zuckerman said. "That doesn't mean they have a right to keep that information from all families."