Viewers who were by turns captivated, infuriated, and motivated by The Librarians documentary may not know there is a second potent documentary that adds to the conversation. An American Pastoral, which released this year, is a film about the spread of the far-right agenda in school boards across the country since 2021. It homes in specifically on Elizabethtown Area School District (EASD) in Pennsylvania, where book bans and curriculum censorship have been raging. Viewers watch the far right takeover of the board, alongside the pushback from educators and community members. They see how easily the misinformation spreads and lies and falsehoods divide a community that shares what seems like a common goal: good schools for their students.
EASD students, educators, and community members have watched books be targeted for years. Among the wide-ranging censorship tactics includes one last year, when the district’s board voted to simply eliminate all funding for the middle and high school libraries. That means no new books have been added to the collection. The m...
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