Hell hath no fury like a librarian scorned in the book banning wars

Amanda Jones is a Louisiana middle-school librarian who sleeps with a shotgun under her bed and carries a pistol when she travels the back roads. I’m just a school librarian from a two red-light town.” Jones’ cautionary and disquieting testament to the nation’s divisiveness is told in her new memoir, “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America,” a blunt, angry, searching and redeeming story about a woman engulfed by forces and designs she never imagined. It is a glimpse into a family and a small town that reads like a chapter out of “The Scarlet Letter” or “The Crucible,” narratives whose themes of fear, superstition, rage and religion are again permeating the nation’s political moment, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s recent comments that “Democrats want to put sexually explicit books in toddlers’ libraries.” “Our presidential election will determine how far it goes,” Jones said in an interview. “Stop that false narrative.” Thames’ lawyer, Joseph Long, was quoted in the Hill after the dismissal as saying that Jones was part of the “radical left” and couldn’t take “the heat of criticism.” Jones wrote in her memoir that Lunsford, who questioned what kind of influence the librarian would have over children, peddled conspiracy theories and espoused “typical far-right nonsense.” She said Thames, whose blog accused her of advocating teaching anal sex to children, was a man “who hides behind his keyboard.” “That Librarian” is a raw and disarming exploration of a writer confronting her own anxieties and wrath — one chapter title reads “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Librarian Scorned.” “I was very angry when I was writing,” said Jones, referring to Lunsford and Thames. Oprah Winfrey praised her in a speech at the 2023 National Book Awards: “Amanda Jones started getting death threats, all for standing up for our right to read.” One person wrote: “Stay strong sister.” An educator told her: “You are a brave warrior!” A veteran from New York sent an encouraging note: “A hell of a lot of children need people like you to help them find the hero within themselves.” Such sentiments, she said, represent a growing push against book banning and censorship as moderate and progressive factions that were slow to mobilize have been winning in recent school board elections.