East Bay children's author stands strong in censorship battle
OAKLAND - An East Bay writer of children's books got the offer of a lifetime--a chance for her book to be distributed by publishing giant Scholastic. But it came with a price that she said was too much to pay.
The book is titled "Love In The Library," the story of how Maggie Tokuda-Hall's grandparents met and fell in love while incarcerated along with 13,000 other people of Japanese descent at the Minidoka Relocation Camp in Idaho during World War II.
"And so, I wrote about it for kids," said Tokuda-Hall. "I wanted to provide them with this example of hope and of beauty and the possibility of change, but one that also didn't shy away from the truth of what happened to them."
The book was written in 2016, but just this year, Tokuda-Hall got an email saying that Scholastic, the largest publisher of schoolbooks in the country, wanted to license it for distribution.
"So, when they want to license your book, it's a huge opportunity," she said. "It's a chance to get your story in front of SO many more kids."
But Scholastic said there was a problem with the Author's Note at the end of the book. The distributor demanded Tokuda-Hall remove a paragraph that related the internment to other social justice issues, such as police abuse, Muslim bans and the incarceration of immigrant children.
"But also, it omitted the word "racism" entirely from the note," she said. "As though racism had nothing to do with what had happened to my grandparents. I wanted this opportunity so badly, but the cost was just too high."
Despite the professional risk, Tokuda-Hall refused the offer. She believes Scholastic was afraid the work would be targeted in the growing effort to ban books in conservative states. Like in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis recently proclaimed, "Floridians want our school system to be about educating kids...not indoctrinating kids!"
The threat of book banning in schools has become a major problem for writers of literature for young people and a letter of protest was sent to Scholastic signed by more than 400 professional writers. The company has now dropped its demands to Tokuda-Hall, saying in a statement: "This approach was wrong and not in keeping with Scholastic's values. We don't want to diminish or in any way minimize the racism that tragically persists against Asian Americans."
But despite that, Tokuda-Hall said she has not decided if she will take the offer and is still in talks with Scholastic about whether the book will be licensed with the company.
"When I wrote that note, I wanted to be really clear that what happened to my grandparents is not an isolated incident in American history," she said. "It is possible that in these moments, incremental change can be made. And I hope this is one of those moments."