Book banning has slowly crept its way into school systems all across the country with Florida and Texas having raised national headlines over the past few years on the matter. That debate has slowly made its way to Connecticut, and to the meeting spaces and Main Street of Newtown.

As the Board of Education continues its ongoing discussions over either keeping or banning the books Flamer by Mike Curato and Blankets by Craig Thompson in the Newtown High School Library, many Newtown residents have chosen to take a stand — a majority voicing their opinions in favor of keeping those books on the shelves.

On May 30, the Newtown Democratic Town Committee held its second rally in front of Edmond Town Hall, where dozens gathered to raise awareness of the situation. The first took place on May 16 at Newtown High School.

Both rallies were organized and run by Newtown DTC Chairman Alex Villamil, who was inspired to start the campaign due to what he characterized as “overreaching” by Board of Education members.

“I have been a resident of Newtown for the past 30 years and have raised four kids in the school system, and this is the first time in those 30 years I have heard of any Board of Education considering to ban books,” he said. “To censor and ban books is un-American, it’s unfair to the kids to do that to them because they need all the information they can possibly get, so limiting them on books like Flamer and Blankets, I think is a disservice to the kids.”

As many protestors held up signs both homemade and those given out that read “Freadom,” others approached the ETH front steps one by one to read speeches illustrating their frustrations and need for change. Among those individuals was Ali Powers, a current senior at NHS, along with Dan Grossman, a resident of Newtown with daughters currently enrolled in the Newtown Public Schools system.

Powers told The Newtown Bee her motivation to come and speak was on behalf of both herself and her friends being “disrespected” by the idea of having these challenged books potentially come off the shelves, and the potential of having materials diverted from them going forward.

“I feel disrespected, I have to sit next to my friends and watch them get disrespected and watch them get excluded every single day and watch them be underrepresented and not supported, and that’s just not the environment that I thought I was going to grow up in here,” she said, referring to members of the high school’s LGBTQ+ community and others.

“If I look back at my elementary school, I have such fond memories, and I think of NHS and it’s not the inclusive environment that I was hoping for, and it’s not the inclusive environment that kids are supposed to be in when they are educated,” Powers added.

Experiences Matter

For Grossman, past experiences and growing up facing anti-Semitic treatment and an overall idea of how people should be treated motivated him in his fight and involvement in the campaign to support retaining the books at the high school.

“I grew up in a time and a town, in Wilton, that was very anti-Semitic,” he said. “I look back on things that were said, that people just didn’t know better, and if you’re uneducated or you don’t care. That’s a problem for kids everywhere, and a lot of us grew up talking about the golden rule.

“But it should be the platinum rule,” Grossman said, “we need to be treating others the way they want to be treated, not just how we believe we should do this.”

With final voting on the book ban scheduled for Thursday, June 1 after the print edition of The Newtown Bee goes to press, and the now added dynamic involving the May 31 resignation of school board members Janet Kuzma and Jennifer Larkin (see related reporting in today’s edition), those at the rally expressed hope that any members of the board who prepare to vote in favor of banning will reconsider.

“Every time I talk to somebody who supports book banning, my first question is ‘did you read the book?’ And I would say nine out of ten have said ‘no I’ve never read the book, but I don’t want pornography in the schools,’” said Villamil. “So, I believe first, you have to read the book and second of all, realize that the experts said this doesn’t qualify as indecent.

“These are coming-of-age books that kids between the ages of 14 and 18 — which is the high school range — can either see themselves in or see their friends in. They are able to appreciate that and learn from them … so why take that away from them?” Villamil asked. “Why limit kids that are about to graduate years from now and go into the real world, and not equip them with the proper understanding of what the world is truly like, and how to get along with people that are not just like them.”

More coverage of the ongoing decision will be available in the next print edition of The Newtown Bee.

Owen Brown is a Sandy Hook resident, student at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), and a summer intern for The Newtown Bee.