Barack Obama is fighting book bans with heartwarming cameos in library TikTok videos

Former President Barack Obama amped up his fight against efforts to ban books with cameo appearances in TikTok videos posted by local libraries this week.

Obama made a brief appearance at the end of a clip posted to Chicago’s Kankakee Public Library’s TikTok account featuring librarians reading books like Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Baby, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, all of which have been targeted by conservative groups and Republican politicians for removal from school and public library shelves across the country. Toward the end of the video, the former president can be seen quietly reading on his own, before the cutting to a black screening and the words “Reading can transport you to new worlds.”

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Reading can transport you to new worlds