Feature: Banned Books Week 2025
It’s that time of year, and the world needs to stand behind free access to reading more than ever, never has Banned Books Week been more important as the USA falls further into fascist propaganda from the far right and religious zealots. Banned Books Week is brought to us by the ALA, thank you for the graphics and resources!
Act now – see below for actionable items you can take, some easy as you sit and read this post.
I am pulling no punches anymore, I am sick and tired of this country’s RIGHTS and FREEDOMS become so trampled by the same party (don’t tread on me) who demands free speech for them and small governments, but can’t actually abide by privacy and the right to self, what a joke!
Now of course books that include or focus on LGBTQIA+ people are the most challenged books, as well as books about People of Color, and books about our history are also challenged! Why? Because what the fascists want is a society who is uneducated, not diverse, and white. It is all about white supremacy with a hint of religious authoritarianism. I am so sick and anyone in these minority groups have been warning people for over a decade that this extremism was coming, but the news and social media was completely complicit in spreading false rumors and ignoring facts to help them make money, and now it’s here louder and more frightening than ever.
I could rant and rave about this topic passionately until I am blue in the face, but instead we need clear actionable items to help reduce these bans and instances of successful bans. So that is what I am going to try and accomplish today. This post is obviously going to be USA based, but some of these ideas are universal.
Action Items:
- Read banned books! Not just the ones that align with your identity, read a bunch or read them all, get educated on why people are challenging these titles.
- There are ” Banned Book Read Ins” this week at local bookstores – see if there is one near you! (this is a google drive document link)
- ALA sponsored events can be found here – like Let Freedom Read Day on October 11th
- Write some Book Resumes for challenged titles – United Against Book Bans has a site to write up and access these free resources that have successfully helped stand up for books that are being challenged locally.
- Buy banned books, and books from marginalized writers. You can also support these books by engaging with them, either on social media or review sites.
- Vote in your local elections, school boards are being influenced heavily by the people who want to ban books. Go to school board meetings if banned books are being discussed.
- Get involved locally – form a book club or join one – being with similarly minded folks reading is a great form of education, discussion, and pushing back.
- Get a library card and support your local library systems, which also includes requesting banned books to be in their catalog. A lot of libraries have a digital request form even!
- Report censorship, book challenges, and book bans to the ALA.
- Ditch the massive corporations involved in the book world. There are many alternatives for the giant evil Zon (ama zon for those who don’t get my evil zon reference).
- Bookshop.org for online shopping that gives back to indie bookstores!
- Libro.fm where you can buy audiobooks and they give back to indie bookstores!
(affiliate links) - Switch from Goodreads (ama zon owns them) to a number of book reading/tracking alternatives, the one I like is Storygraph App
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For the 4th year since All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, has been published (in 2020 so data hits the following year) it has been on the Top 10 Most Challenged books – which is wild since you can’t ban a memoir, you can’t say someone’s lived experiences are wrong for others to read! Gender Queer is also a memoir, just in graphic novel form, it is abhorrent that people are so ashamed of others and how they share their experiences, so much so, they challenge others from reading them. If you haven’t read either of the top two most challenged books since 2021 – I would highly recommend you start your banned books journey there.
All Boys Aren't Blue
by George M. Johnsonon April 28, 2020
Genres: LGBTQIA+, Non-Fiction, Young Adult
Bookshop, Amazon
Goodreads
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.
From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.
Gender Queer: A Memoir
by Maia KobabePublished by: Oni Press
on May 28, 2019
Genres: Graphic Novel, LGBTQIA+, Non-Fiction, Young Adult
Bookshop, Amazon
Goodreads
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em.
Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
BookCrushin archives of Banned Books Week Posts – 2022 – 2019 – 2018 – 2017
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