Unpack new reads and big savings during our Back to School Sale. Save 25-50% on thousands of ebooks and audiobooks – Picture Books/Read-Alongs, YA/Teen Reads, Diverse Reads, Graphic Novels and much more! This year it’s September 18-24 and the theme is Books Unite Us. However you choose to celebrate, I hope that you make sure to take action this month in supporting your local or school library. Whether that’s educating yourself on the rights students have to access books or figuring out how to contact your legislators about book bans. Your voice and your vote matter. It is more important now than ever to speak out and stand up for citizens’ right to read. While people who want to ban or censor books are in the minority, just 29% of voters want to challenge books in public libraries and 33% want to remove books from shelves in school libraries, these percentages can have a big impact on a community if they are the only ones making any noise. Observing Banned Books Week reminds us to educate ourselves on which books are being challenged. The American Library Association has a list of the top 10 challenged books by year. The lists are always changing, and you might be surprised what books are on it from year to year. Gender Queer, published in 2019, was the most challenged book of 2021 and in 2020 it was Melissa, published in 2015. These books were published years before they were most challenged. The 2021 and 2020 lists include books that many consider classics such as The Bluest Eye, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men.
September 15 is Jailed for Words and Art: Uplifting Critical Voices and Fighting Censorship and event hosted by Amnesty International USA.September 20th is Fighting Words: Censorship and Banned Books hosted by Eisenhower Public Library featuring authors Jeff Zentner and Jessie Ann Foley.September 21st attend Breaking Bans: A Celebration of Banned Books hosted by Penguin Random House and Booklist moderated by Dr. Emily Knox featuring authors Renee Watson, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Kim Johnson, and Kyle Lukoff.September 21st is also Meet the Author: Ryan Estrada who wrote graphic memoirs Banned Book Club, Occulted, and No Rules Tonight hosted by King County Library System.Stand for Banned Books Virtual Read Out is an online program where people can submit videos of themselves reading excerpts from banned books or explaining why they read a certain book. Your video might be selected to feature on the Banned Books Week YouTube channel. You can go there and see the videos that were selected last year.
I would be remiss if I didn’t include a few sources for ideas about physical displays as well. Kelly suggests having a display that is empty of books, with book holders only, for a big impact on what censorship could realistically look like without advocacy for intellectual freedom. The ALA has a list of ideas for displays from locked up boxes to burned banners. Also check out the Banned Books Week Pinterest page with creative visuals to spark ideas.
