The ABCs of Book Banning, a nominee for this year’s Academy Award for best documentary short film, is temporarily available to watch free of charge on YouTube, Variety reports.
The short, produced by MTV Documentary Films and directed by longtime documentary producer Sheila Nevins, explores the impact of book bans across the country.
The film opens with a meeting of the school board in Martin County, Florida. (The state leads the nation in book challenges and bans, many of which target books that deal with LGBTQ+ issues or feature characters of color.) A woman is seen addressing the meeting, saying, “Good afternoon, folks. I am Grace Linn. I am 100 years young. I’m here to protest our school’s district book-banning policy. My husband…was killed in action in World War II, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned.”
Later in the film, an image of the book Rosa, written by Nikki Giovanni and illustrated by Bryan Collier, is shown with a stamp marked “Banned” superimposed on its cover; the book is a Caldecott Honor–winning children’s biography of Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks.
The film cuts to a 9-year-old named Yeye, who says, “No. No. If you were the person who helped ban this book, why? Just why? Do you feel like Rosa Parks is a bad person? Do you feel…people should not know about her legacy? Why do you choose to do this? I’m just curious.”
The ABCs of Book Banning will be free to watch on YouTube until the end of February.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
