Panel Banned but Not Silenced - Authors Tell Their Stories: Meg Medina

 

Meg Medina served as the eighth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. She is the author of many notable works for young readers of all ages, including the Newbery Medal–winning and New York Times bestselling book Merci Suárez Changes Gears, the first in a trilogy. Meg's work has won numerous distinctions over the years, including the Pura Belpré award, the Ezra Jack Keats Writer's Award, the Charlotte Zolotow prize, and the Margaret Wise Brown prize, among others. Her work examines how cultures intersect through the eyes of young people. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Moderator Lesa Cline-Ransome starts the panel with a quote from Toni Morrison: “The function of Freedom is to free someone else.”

She starts the panel on this tone, because this panel is about censorship and the eminent threat censorship poses to artists. Naturally, this takes us libraries, which are an oasis for public learning and access to literature. 

This takes us to our first question:

Q: The role of libraries in your life—

Meg didn’t have a relationship with a librarian specifically. But, the rhythm of the family, centered around a visit to the library after a visit to the Jack-in-the-Box. So to Meg, she associates the library with those small details of her childhood. 

Meg spoke on the silent reading times after school and the influence that the recommendations of Judy Blume’s books had on her. And that that experience is now being threatened. 

Q: Meg and Jason Reynolds are asked about their tenures as the national ambassadors for libraries — 

Meg speaks of her trepidation for Jason, who toured almost exclusively in rural America. Meg had to follow Jason as an ambassador - no easy feat. She notes that rules and conditions were getting progressively worse. Her ambassadorship included communities that could show her that the public and school libraries are in partnership.

They’re two silos, which contain their own rules. The public library has great programing that no one shows up to, so she wanted to see them together. 

She found out that it’s not the kids. She was treated with respect, but there was a stipulation in her contract for her safety. And that’s how sad the state of things are, that those things have to be considered. 

Q: Books teach us a fear of ideas. What are people really afraid of? 

From Meg’s perspective, she thought, years ago, that this isn’t the parent objecting about their specific kids, this is an organized movement. The banning is an offshoot of a larger narrative. For a while, she said, the industry would respond in a smaller way, but now it’s a well-oiled machine that acts in and of fear. 

In New York, Meg’s book, about a parent, a grandmother, and little girl, was taken down for “critical race theory.”

Q: What can be done? Solutions for banned books:

Meg has ambassadorship experience. She says the best position you want to have is to be in conversation with teens. That’s the strongest position. Even if you are reading something you don’t agreement, the beauty is in the conversation. Read and think and let them tell you what they think. That’s the most palatable way to ask, “are you crazy?!.” She respects the fact that parents want the best for their kids and think they’r doing the best for their kids. So she wants to tell parents there are different ways to do what’s best for them.
This is an industry of words. What are we waiting for, meg asks, we as writers can create slogans and verbiage that we can use and that resource of artists using art is a resource that’s largely untapped. 

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