Public Libraries Are Being Packed With Radical Titles
By Jack Knocke
Public libraries are a key battleground for the leftist, progressive, democratic machine to negatively influence and confuse our youth. This is a story about a conservative enclave in Florida that allowed a takeover of their library system – Nassau County, Florida.
Three years ago, concerned citizens met with the Nassau County library director and her boss to make them aware of harmful books in the children’s library, a concerning relationship with ALA (American Library Association) and limited conservative periodicals. They committed to clean it up.
Fast forward, to 2025 when the Library Director retired. A fresh look at our library was alarming. The first indicators were LGBTQ themed sexual books in the children’s section. Sam is my sister (ages 4-8), Born ready: the true story of a boy named Penelope (4-8), Mallory in full color (nonbinary, drag queen, activism/resistance, teen same/sex crush).
When conservatives say that the liberal community is going after they children, liberal advocates especially the LGBTQ activists vehemently deny. But, the facts speak differently.
I shared these and a few other titles with the County Manager and the County Commissioners. I let them know that this is the tip of the iceberg. I asked questions like:
Who is running our libraries?
Who ordered these books?
Who placed them on the shelves of the children’s section?
Why was there no oversight?
How are these books marked to alert parents as to their concerning content?
I also asked about the library system’s relationship with ALA. I was previously assured that there was no relationship. There was concern because at the time the leader of the ALA was a self-proclaimed Marxist lesbian. The current ALA leader is non-binary, aromantic and asexual – in their own words. This organization clearly should not be driving national library policy – but they do – if we let them. ALA policies were being shared by our local library leadership.
The responses that I received back from County Manager and Commissioners focused on procedures controlling access to the books. I have it on good authority that any child can walk into the library, sit down and read the book. A library card and parental permission may be needed to check out the book – if it is flagged correctly.
To make the point, I had to find more data points and show them in a graph. Here are some graphs of the new books added each year – by keyword.
Here are graphs on new books added tagged as LGBTQ, witch and racism. Interesting consistent patterns.
With this pattern in Nassau County Florida, I tried another conservative county – Putnam County Florida. These are the graphs for witch and LGBTQ keyword tags. Similar trends.
In Cherokee County, Georgia’s Sequoyah Regional Library (another conservative area), the number of witch books in the library in 1999 was 32. As of today, there are 291. Almost 10 times the number of books. Bottom line, it’s everywhere. Pick other keywords and see what you find (racism, climate, LGBTQ, sexual, witch, occult, fascism, nazi to name a few).
Parents and grandparents need to get involved to hold your libraries and your elected officials accountable – personally. Don’t let them distract you with “access” processes. That is a slight of hand approach. Your hard-earned tax dollars should fund literature and not activism.
Your involvement makes a difference. In 2022, we began challenging sexual, LGBTQ, violent and other books in our Nassau County Schools. They fought us the whole way, but the trendline has moved in the right direction.
The analysis above can be done in an hour using your county or school library’s system and AI to put the list into a spreadsheet for analysis.
Don’t wait for someone else to do the analysis. Work with your neighbors, your church, your pastor, or your kids. They need to know the garbage that is being shoved in their face under the guise of literature.
Another suggestion is to ask AI to write you a solid new book acquisition policy for your library or school – state law specific. Know that AI is left leaning, so they will put back doors in unless you ask very specific parameters (classical based, historically accurate, age appropriate, etc.) and question any weak part of what AI suggests. Take it to local leaders and hold them accountable to improve the policy so that we don’t have to do this every 2 years.
Jack Knocke
Common Sense Fernandina Beach
jackknocke@gmail.com
Published with permission of libertysentinel.org