Booksology Moms for Liberty is a group belonging to the non-professional review website Booklooks.org, as originally reported in May 2022. Offering cherry-picked passages as Booklooks.info, Booklooks offers cherry-picked passages from the novel the group is about to review, allowing members to lodge assignments with titles rated by volunteer members.
Over the past few years, public institutions, including public libraries and public schools, have been plagued by the challenges of books citing Booklooks’ “reviews.” Some believe they should purchase a subscription to the review system with no rhyme or reason for how they chose rhymes or volunteer reviewer credentials. Today, public libraries in Anoka County, Minnesota and Warren County, New Jersey have such public schools. Review sites seek to use review sites as if they were close to the competence of legitimacy, as long-term, professionally developed review sources are directed towards the public.
But now it appears that Liberty’s Booklooks mom will be closed on March 23rd. The following was displayed on the Booklooks website on Monday, March 10th, 2025:
White and green text on black background is a nightmare of design. So, if it is difficult to read, the text says:
As of Sunday, March 23, 2025, booklooks.org will abort the operation and delete all reports from the site.
It has had many ups and downs since God called us to this work in 2022, but after much prayer and reflection it became clear that his work here is perfect and that he has other calls for us.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this job. I am grateful for the kind words of support from everyone who found this job useful. Our accusations are always to help parents, and it seems that the mission has been largely accomplished. I hope the publisher takes up the torch and becomes more transparent about the book’s explicit content.
Thank you, and God’s blessing!
None of the official moms on the Liberty channel have announced this, but this is no surprise. Despite evidence of the group’s investment in Booklooks, they continued to deny the relationship. Booklooks serves as a template and resource for groups beyond moms for freedom.
Whether this is a publicity stunt intended to lead the site to even more radar is more than a few institutions who use the site and, despite its important shortcomings, are keen to justify it – has yet to be determined. However, this announcement brings many questions worth asking and thinking in the broader context of contemporary books and curriculum censorship under the new administration. among them:
- Have the site work been sold to a large company that is trying to “specialize” reviews created by volunteers? There are several companies that are interested in “supporting” and educating library workers. We have already seen one library vendor rely on the same language developed in Booklooks, which is related to the universal evaluation system (the vendor has retreated following criticism). Their rating system has permeated other non-professional review resources. It doesn’t matter if BookLooks.org itself remains active.
- What role does leadership in Mama for Freedom play in the current federal administration, and where and how will the content on this site be used in other ways? Tiffany Justice, one of the co-founders for Freedom, suggests in a recent press release from the Department of Education that she and her likes have immediate access to the national sectors covering public schools.
- Whether they have suffered from lawsuits or other legal consequences. Site reviews may violate copyright laws for text copied from books they have thoroughly evaluated. Moms for Liberty is suing in New York, and Booklooks is cited in Amicus Brief. The Wayne County chapter of the group, along with the pastor, is suing the Clyde Savannah School District for not banning books they disagree with. Deleting the site and reviews may be part of what the group’s lawyers recommend doing to protect themselves from similar cases in the future.
- There is a direct conflict with the mission of challenging books based on their own rating system, where and how moms are for the increased push for Liberty to put books in public schools. Just today, Sun Coast News covered donations of several books groups packed with right-wing propaganda in the Hernando County School District. The group also published their first children’s book at the end of 2024.
This is a developing story and we’ll be receiving more information over the next few weeks. If you are invested in this moment archive, it is especially important in the history of censorship, as it continues the administration that simply does not write down or archive what “never happens.”
If you are a library worker or educator who has books challenged or deleted based on Booklooks reviews, we recommend that you save those reviews as well.
