Every autumn, Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with removal or restricted in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.
How did it start?
Banned Books Week started at BookExpo in 1982 in an effort to bring attention to increasing protests and challenges to books. The Island Trees School District v. Pico Supreme Court case had ruled in that same year that school officials can’t ban books in libraries simply because of their content. The Office of Intellectual Freedom then took Banned Books Week nationwide, encouraging booksellers and libraries to participate.
Do we still need Banned Books Week?
Books are still being banned and challenged today. In fact, we're seeing an unprecedented wave of book challenges right now; in 2023 the Office of Intellectual Freedom recorded a stunning 1,247 demands to remove books from schools or libraries. Not only that, but 90% of those demands were for lists of titles, and the number of books targeted in 2023 was a record 4,240 unique titles. The last few years have been record-breaking and ever-increasing. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the actual removal of those materials.
While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.
Besides books, Banned Books Week gives us an opportunity to reflect on wider issues of censorship, free thought, and an open society. There are many places in the world that are becoming more authoritarian and punishing citizens for speaking out in dissent, and those cases deserve attention. It is a natural human instinct to want to suppress words we don't like, and it's not always easy to remember that an open society where everyone can speak (and offend!) is one that serves all citizens best -- especially marginalized and minoritized people.
“This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs.”
- Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom
Starting in 2021, legislators in several states began a push to remove books from schools and libraries that has only intensified since. From an NBC News story:
A photo taken by a teacher shows a cart full of books as they were being removed from a North East ISD library in December. Obtained by NBC News
In 2021, this Texas public library did an experiment as an illustration of the consequences:
"I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States — and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!” — Kurt Vonnegut
“Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history. The language was painful and life was painful for many African Americans, including my family. I remember the pain.”
― Mildred D. Taylor, The Land
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” -- Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Texas vs. Johnson
It would be a poor sort of world if one were only able to read authors who expressed points of view that one agreed with entirely. It would be a bland sort of world if we could not spend time with people who thought differently, and who saw the world from a different place. -- Neil Gaiman
“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” ― Stephen Chbosky
Comics and cartoons can viscerally upset and offend people. Cartoons and comics get banned and cartoonists get imprisoned and killed. Some comics are hard to defend, especially if you prefer prettier drawing styles, lack cultural context, or were hoping for subtlety. But that does not mean that they should not be defended. -- Neil Gaiman
“I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives.” — Judy Blume
“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.” — EM Forster
“When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author.” — From The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” — Ray Bradbury
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." -- Heinrich Heine
"The only way to kill a bad idea is by exposing it and supplanting it with better ones." -- Jonathan Rauch
“But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me.” — Mark Twain
“Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.” — Lyndon B. Johnson
“Censorship is saying: ‘I’m the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.’ But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.” — Ai Weiwei
“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” ― Salman Rushdie
“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty. [Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]” ― John F. Kennedy
“If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them." [Bangor Daily News, Guest Column of March 20, 1992]” ― Stephen King
“Censors don’t want children exposed to ideas different from their own. If every individual with an agenda had his/her way, the shelves in the school library would be close to empty.” ― Judy Blume
The people who want to scour mass media and cleanse it of all hateful or hurtful opinions miss that their purge would deny us important knowledge. Simply put, it is far better to know that there are bigots among us than to pretend all is well. As Harvey Silverglate likes to say, he supports free speech because he thinks it's important that he know if there's an anti-Semite in the room so he can make sure not to turn his back to that person. -- Greg Lukianoff
“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.” ― Bohumil Hrabal, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (not to be taken literally! But books aren't necessarily supposed to be comfortable.)
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” ― Haruki Murikami
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” ― Joseph Brodsky