
To see the fiercest warriors on film today, don’t bother with Gladiator II. Instead, watch The Librarians, the documentary feature film that debuted at Sundance last week.
The librarians at the heart of the film face fierce opponents – including politicians, Moms for Liberty, and conservative school boards – to defend the rights of students to read material that reflects their lives.
The film, executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, is partnering for its impact campaign with PEN America, which documented more than 10,000 book bans in the 2023-2024 school year.
In creating the film, Oscar-nominated, Peabody-winning director Kim A. Snyder filmed contentious school board meetings and spoke to librarians who have been fired, harassed, and stalked over their defense of books. (One of the librarians in the film, Amanda Jones, has filed defamation lawsuits against people who accused her of grooming and indoctrination.)
In a panel discussion at Sundance, Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director of U.S. Free Expression and education programs at PEN America, spoke with Snyder, retired librarian Carolyn Foote, and George M. Johnson, author of All Boys Aren’t Blue, about the film and the impact of the war on books.

An Incendiary Spark
Snyder’s film unfolded after an “incendiary spark” in Texas, where Republican State Representative Matt Krause asked schools to tell him whether they held any of 850 books on a list that became known as “the Krause list.”
As a newcomer to book bans, Snyder said what stood out to her was book banners’ rhetoric around “indoctrination” as opposed to representation in libraries, and using the idea of “pornography” and obscenity statutes to prosecute librarians. “If they use the word pornography, there’s a triggering reaction to that word and people just lose all discernment at that point.”
In the film, Suzette Baker in the Llano, Texas, library asked her county commissioners, “How is the history of the KKK pornography? How is How to Be an Antiracist pornography?” Snyder called accusations of pornography “a Trojan Horse to ban any ideas they don’t like.”
Foote, who helped lead resistance to book bans in Texas by co-founding Texas FReadom Fighters, said much of the fight is at the local level, where community members can come forward to support librarians. With censorial bills popping up across the nation, it’s also essential to support groups who are leading challenges to book banning.
The Toll on Authors
Johnson’s memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, is one of the most frequently banned books in U.S. schools, and is now banned statewide in Utah, where the panel and screening were held. Johnson had seven criminal complaints filed against the book, and believes book banners’ ultimate goal is to have the Supreme Court overturn Island Trees School District vs. Pico, which ruled that the First Amendment limits the power of school officials to remove books from school libraries because of their content.
In the face of these challenges, Johnson said they felt the most necessary thing for authors to do is “to not cower in the face of cowardice.” After All Boys Aren’t Blue was targeted, Johnson wrote about the Harlem Renaissance, “because if your ultimate goal is erasure, we have to put the stories back out there.”
Foote said the formation of a national working right to read group gives her hope that they can make a difference on a national level. Johnson puts their hope in the next generation: “Gen Z and Gen Alpha really do get it and as long as we keep providing them the knowledge, they are going to fight just as fervently as any of the generations before us.”