Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter and Miami native Joanie Leeds has released a new record — “FREADOM” — to protest the movement by government leaders in Florida and other states to ban certain books.
“It definitely is a protest album,” Leeds told WLRN’s Michael Stock, host of Folk & Acoustic Music”, in an interview, which airs Sunday, Feb. 25, beginning at 3 p.m.
“I feel like there are these groups trying to take away access and take away the freedom of information all over the country,” she said.
Leeds, 45, who lives in New York and was born and raised in Miami, won her first Grammy award in 2021 for Best Children’s Music Album. It was her ninth children’s album.
She will be performing Sunday, March 3, at the "Little Jam Fest" at Jungle Island in Miami. The event runs from 1-6 p.m.
She told WLRN that she’s appalled at the effort to ban books effort in Florida and other states.
“I know what's happening in Florida,” she said. “It's happening in Texas and a lot of other places … they're trying to take away people's voices.”
READ MORE: Groups challenging books are organized. These South Florida readers want to push back
New Florida laws have made it easier for parents to object to books, resulting in more school districts banning books in the past couple of years.
“It's not just affecting certain kids from marginalized communities. It's also affecting all children that don't have access to these books to learn about people from different communities.”Joanie Leeds
PEN America, a group that opposes book bans, recorded 1,406 book ban cases in Florida in the 2022-23 school year, across about half of the state’s school districts.
A September Florida Department of Education report shows 20 of Florida’s 67 school districts and the statewide public Florida Virtual School removed 298 books in the 2022-23 school year. Some of those books were banned in multiple districts. Overall, school district officials received 1,218 objections about books.
Many of the objections were for books containing race, sexual or LGBTQ+ content and came from a small group of parents, some affiliated with conservative groups, such as Moms for Liberty, a Tampa Bay Times analysis found.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed policies that allow the censorship and challenging of books based on whether they are appropriate for children in schools.
Cherished books
In producing her latest record album, Leeds said that each song is centered around the record's theme: banned books.
She said the song Inside Your Heart was inspired by the book Island Born, a story about finding out where you come from when you live far from your birthplace. The song includes a chorus in Spanish.
Leeds told WLRN that books banned or restricted include many cherished by her eight-year-old daughter. Among them: Sulwe by actress Lupita Nyong’o and Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb. Gorman recited a poem from the book at President Biden’s 2021 swearing-in ceremony.
“It’s mind-baffling how these books are being taken away and access is being taken away,” she said. “What is, quote unquote, offensive? I think that really differs depending on who you're speaking to,” she said. “It’s really frustrating.”
“It's not just affecting certain kids from marginalized communities,” said Leeds. “It's also affecting all children that don't have access to these books to learn about people from different communities.”
“I find that the best way to teach and educate children is through music,” she added. “So I wanted to create songs revolving around this topic specifically for children.”
PolitiFact and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
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