I think, frequently, about the classic young adult book, “The Outsiders.” The 1967 book powerfully illustrates the impact of poverty, of gang violence, of losing parents at a young age, of alcohol abuse and of class warfare on young teenagers in Tulsa, Okla. It showed the power of quotidian beauty as the protagonist struggled to understand and survive the violence, surrounded by love from his “nontraditional” family. It’s a gritty read.

The novel drew from the author’s lived experience. Even more surprising: she was only sixteen when she wrote “The Outsiders.” She watched adults try to remove it from public libraries many times.

Interestingly enough, my mother allowed me to read the book as a young teenager (it was a favorite of hers growing up) but would not allow me to read the Harry Potter series. Both books sat on the young adult fiction shelves in the public libraries we used as a homeschooling family to supplement our curriculum. In fact, my mother disapproved of several children and YA books, but never did she request to move or ban them. She simply didn’t allow us to check them out. It was her choice as a parent.

Until recently, librarians expected parents to oversee their childrens’ reading materials, especially as each family has its own standards of appropriate reading material. The tension between those standards can be tricky to navigate. But some Alabama parents and politicians are wielding the rhetoric of parental rights to restrict everyone’s constitutional rights and discriminate against a specific group of American citizens. Gov. Kay Ivey is forcing government scrutiny on books written by LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) authors for children and teenagers. Our own Cullman County Commissioner Garry Marchman told me he didn’t want any LGBTQ books in the library at all, citing the Bible, a religious text, as the reason.

This is censorship. Libraries, as public community spaces, means every single person in America can own a library card and read any book their heart desires regardless of gender, race and socioeconomic class or sexual orientation. It is reasonable, then, to conclude that every person and family can expect representation in the public library in every section. In fact, Cullman Public Library’s own policy makes that clear. It says “since all political, religious, and social opinions should be represented in a public library, no group or individual will be permitted to impose a partisan emphasis on the library’s collection.”

Guardrails do exist to protect children. Anyone under 12 years old cannot even be in the Cullman Public Library without a parent or legal guardian present. Children are not allowed to roam shelves at will. Laws establish the legal definition of pornography and obscenity.

For some parents, Harry Potter was perfectly acceptable. For others, like my own family, it was not. Some parents are okay with certain sexual content in books. Other families consider mere kissing scenes as “sexually explicit.”

For me, books like “Are you there God, it’s me Margaret,” “A Wrinkle in Time” and, yes, “The Outsiders,” gave me a voice when adults would not. Children and teenagers can find their stories in the public library.

Censoring Cullman Public Library’s collection will deprive the upcoming generation of their own stories. It deprives parents of choice. It deprives American citizens of representation. It deprives a community of diversity. We are all poorer for that reason.