Tag: banned books

Authors Against Book Bans

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest post from Jessica Olin, who was in the library field for close to twenty years, both as a librarian and a library director. For eight of those years, they were also responsible for the well known blog, Letters to a Young Librarian.

Why is a former academic librarian and library director writing for ACRLog? Because I want to talk to you about an organization I joined last year, an organization I’m hoping you’ll join as well: Authors Against Book Bans. We are doing important work and I’m hoping you’ll join your voices to ours.

Let me begin by sharing our mission statement:

We are Authors Against Book Bans. 
We, a coalition of writers, illustrators, anthology editors and contributors, and other book creators, stand united against the deeply unconstitutional movement to limit the freedom to read. We unequivocally support the availability of diverse voices on our library shelves, in our schools, and in our culture. We pledge to band together against the oppression of literature, to speak when our voices are silenced, to go where our bodies are needed, and to fight as one to ensure this freedom. Together, we will be fearless.
Our concern is not only for the books themselves, but for the children, families, educators, librarians, and communities who suffer when the freedom to read is challenged and taken away. We abhor the current organized attempts to censor books in schools and libraries across our nation, particularly in view of their insidious targeting of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ stories, the erasing of history, and silencing of voices that speak truthfully about essential human experiences. The great power of literature is its ability to create empathy, foster self-empowerment, impart knowledge, and enhance diversity of thought. We will defend this power from those who seek to subvert it.
As authors and as members of our local and national communities, we pledge to protect the rights of all young people to access the books they need and deserve.

So many of the people reading this right now are more than librarians and educators: you’re authors, too. I was an author long before I published my first work of fiction. I’ll admit I didn’t think of myself that way back then. I was more concerned with getting my ideas out into the world while also making my CV and my annual report look good.

Another thing I should admit is that book bans weren’t something I necessarily worried about when I was still in academia. I was more concerned with budgets and faculty buy-in, with preserving institutional history in the archives and fighting for library instruction inclusion in the broader curriculum. The one time someone tried to question the way my library ran our collection, upper administration and I laughed about it briefly then moved onto other topics. I felt, and really was, removed from that kind of thing.

But that’s not the truth anymore. Earlier this year, the United States Naval Academy saw the removal of nearly 400 books from its library under the order of the Defense Secretary. Earlier this month, that spread to all military educational institution library collections (as discussed here on ACRLog in a post by Violet Fox). It’s not just military schools, either. Whole programs are being cut to satisfy misguided and unconstitutional dictates on both local and national levels. Your libraries aren’t immune, and it will only get worse from here.

This is why we need to fight. And fight we are.

Here are some recent victories:

  • HB 1539/SB 1692, the Florida “Material Harmful to Minors” law, is officially dead for the 2025 legislative season. According to Florida Freedom to Read, an organization with boots on the ground in that state, AABB was a huge part of that.
  • Texas voters elected a big group of freedom to read candidates in school board elections across the state. Members of AABB created candidate score cards in concert with Texas Freedom to Read, that helped inform the electorate.

And now I’ll circle back to what I said in the opening paragraph: I proposed this guest post because I’m hoping you’ll join with us. This is the kind of organization that you really can have as little or as much involvement as you’d like. For some of our members, it’s like signing a petition – and having your name on our rolls is a valuable contribution you can make. That’s how I started. You can also get more involved – like the thirty-eight separate emails I wrote to Florida legislators opposing a bad law, or supporting authors who are facing bans, or even this blog post I’m writing.

Yes, AABB is racking up the wins, but there’s so much more to do. We need more voices for such important work. Add your voice to ours. We’re stronger together.

Notes on a Banned Books Class

Last semester, I taught my first semester-long class at the community college where I work. Many community colleges offer both credit courses and classes that are for continuing education, workforce training, and recreation — my class was one of these, based on a class that a previous librarian taught.

That librarian presented a series of discussions of literary classics, largely ones that were banned in the 1960s-1980s. When I took over the class, I focused on recent examples of books that have been targeted by book challenges and bans, since that has been a relentless topic in the news. I selected most of my titles from the past few years of ALA’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books lists. I had about 10 students, most of whom were older members of the community from the surrounding county.

I explained the difference between challenges and bans, and we looked at the landscape of book bans in the United States — where challenges take place (mainly school and public libraries) and who initiates them (until recently, individual and small groups of parents). We also discussed how the process to investigate challenges works in different types of libraries and the role that public comment and citizen advocacy can play in resisting book bans and other types of censorship.

Infographic from ALA's Censorship by the numbers
Censorship by the Numbers, ALA

By covering titles that are on current lists of challenged books, our conversation felt urgent and relevant to the lives of my students. We talked about the troubling trend of challenging books that feature LGBTQ+ characters or themes, as well as discussions of race and racism. 

Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools, PEN America

We began each class period with a discussion of each book’s themes and literary or storytelling merit. When it came time to evaluate the reasons each book was banned, students frequently found these book-ban objections to be cherry-picked and politically motivated.

Respectful debate is possible
In the first class period, we discussed “ground rules” for a civil exchange of ideas in this classroom. I was bracing myself for heated conversation, since we were reading books that addressed sensitive topics. But I found my students to be open-minded and respectful, and that spending time with these characters increased empathy and curiosity about different perspectives. It was gratifying to find that people in a small, safe environment were willing to be vulnerable and open with each other. 

It’s OK to over-prepare…
Like any first-time teacher, I over-prepared for this class for sure, but I quickly found a groove. I brought a lot of statistics (thanks to the incredibly detailed reports from PEN America and ALA), which helped contextualize specific examples from different school districts and public libraries in the US. I tried to resist the urge to enthusiastically “info-dump” or guide students toward the conclusions I was entering the classroom with. 

…but leave lots of room for where the conversation can go.
I remember for my first class, where we discussed Melissa by Alex Gino (a middle-grade novel about a transgender girl in 4th grade), I expected a lot of questions from my students about gender-affirming healthcare for children and adults. Instead, students honed in on the different types of allies in the book, and a rich discussion emerged on how to be a good ally and make spaces safer wherever we go.

When I first encountered Banned Books Week as a new librarian in 2015, book bans felt like a quaint, relatively nonthreatening relic of history to me. I remember making making simple book displays with imagery of fire or prison bars (lots of red and black construction paper), highlighting the “silly” reasons people challenge books. And I’ve heard critiques of Banned Books Week as being a complacent celebration of individual classics, that takes the focus away from the pressing issue of coordinated censorship attempts going on right now. PEN America’s Banned Books 2022 report sums it up well:

Many Americans may conceive of challenges to books in schools in terms of reactive parents, or those simply concerned after thumbing through a paperback in their child’s knapsack or hearing a surprising question about a novel raised by their child at the dinner table. However, the large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic expressions of citizen concern. Rather, they reflect the work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission.

Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Ban Books

The banned books game has changed, and it’s more important now than ever for librarians and library users to be able to clearly articulate just what is so harmful about this phenomenon. Even in academia, where we are more confident in our academic freedom of speech, we need to be vigilant about the right to read. It’s an issue of democracy, diversity, and freedom for all of us.

I adapted this excellent Bookriot article into a one-page handout with specifics on how community members can resist book bans and other censorship attempts on a local level: Combating Censorship in Your Community. Please feel free to continue to adapt and share this resource if it is relevant to your academic library!