Banned Book Week 2023

October 1-7 is Banned Book Week (began in 1982) where we bring awareness to book banning and push back.  Judith Krug, co-fouder of Banned Books Week, states it so well: "The right of any individual to read is an absolute necessity in a democratic society."

More important than ever!

Although book bans have been around for centuries and are nothing new, there were more censorship attempts in 2022 than at any time since the American Library Association began tracking more than twenty years ago.

It is critical to stand up against censorship since a small cadre are producing most challenges leading to bans while on both sides of the aisle, large majorities of voters and parents oppose book bans:

71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries.

67% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from school libraries.

Additionally, according to reports, 70% of Florida parents with children in the schools disagree with the book bans.

Tampa Bay Times Sept 3, 2023 editorial stated "The two culture warriors submitted about 600 of the 1,100 book challenges made since July 2022 ... The Times investigation shows it’s not at all clear if the people making the complaints actually read the books they said should be tossed out.

The Times investigation shows quite clearly how a tiny number of activists can effectively overwhelm a school district, especially when enabled by state leaders.

“We have probably spent more resources on (Bruce Friedman who filed 400+ complaints) than anyone else in the history of the school district,’’ said Roger Dailey, Clay County’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

The report also shows that the vast majority of parents aren’t using book challenges... This isn’t a mass movement. Parents aren’t showing up in big numbers to censor books."

Removing and banning books from libraries is a slippery slope to government censorship and the erosion of our country's commitment to freedom of expression.

Here is LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow fame (and or course Roots and Star Trek Next Generation) with a message for Banned Book Week:

Brief history of book banning

Check out this informative short video that gives a good overview of book banning history.

The first recorded book in US to be banned on a national scale was Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and has been credited with being one of the books that helped start the Civil War.  

"Because, as the lawmakers of ancient China and the Nazis in Czechoslovakia decided, an educated people can not be governed; because the conquered people must change the history of their beliefs, like the Aztecs; because only the illiterate can save the world, a common theme of the millenarian preachers of every era; because the nature of a great collection of books is a threat to the new power."  Books on Fire: The Destuction of Libraries throughout History by Lucien Polastron

"In late 2021, I’m confronted with an unprecedented “new illiteracy”—another version of the ever-shifting literacy myth. The historical continuities are shattered by, first, the call to ban books in innumerable circumstances; second, the banning of written literature without reading it; and, third, calls for burning books. This constitutes a movement for illiteracy, not a campaign for approved or selective uses of reading and writing. 

Previous banning movements did not overtly concentrate on race, aim to empty libraries, or associate so closely with one political party. The people behind these movements prided themselves on their direct familiarity with the explicit contents of that which they wished to ban (or even burn). They used their literacy in their brazen efforts to control the uses of others’ literacy. Today’s banners and burners, by contrast, are the new illiterates, achieving a rare historical distinction."  The History of Book Banning by Harvey J. Graff (historian of literacy), Publisher's Weekly, Dec 31, 2021

Resources to get involved 

5 Steps you can take: Click here 

Little Free Libraries Banned Book Week information: Click here  

Unite Against Book Bans toolkit: Click here 

Virtual Read Out Videos: Post a video (under 3 minutes) of reading a section of a banned book on the Youtube or other and submit your entry (here) with the link to your video.  Youtube has a channel of Virtual Read Outs where you can see how it's done (click here).

And please, PLEASE, write a letter to your governor in support of bills like this one passed in Illinois (click here) that outlaws public library book bans, and this one passed in California (click here) which outlaws book bans and textbook censorship in public schools.

Check your local library for Banned Book Week events

Here are a few events at libraries throughout the nation (click here) and go to your local library's website to see what they may have planned.  

Empty Library Memorial in Berlin

To finish off this post about the banned book week, I'd like to draw attention to a thought provoking memorial in Berlin, Germany.  It is a memorial to the May 10, 1933 book burnings by the Nazis.  The memorial can be seen from the street as you look through a window to bookshelves below the street starkly empty that represents all the books, the ideas, the knowledge, the words that challenged and expanded thinking that were lost.

"As part of the process of aligning German society, the Hitler regime initiated a policy of censorship and prohibition from the outset. Physical regeneration was also accompanied by moral regeneration, that is, the promotion of Germanic identity and, conversely, the annihilation of writings deemed subversive, decadent, or at least contrary to German honor...  Each year, as the commemorative dates of the event approach, an open-air library is set up in the square, making available to the curious some of the works that were incinerated at the time."

They also banned and burned books simply because of the ethnic heritage of the author or political association.  Similar to banning Amanda Gorman's 2021 inauguration poem "The Hill We Climb, If Only We Dare It" because she is black and the poem doesn't "white wash" our history.  Amanda Gorman at 22 years old is the youngest poet for an inauguration in our history, she became the Youth Poet Laurete of Los Angeles at age 16, she is the first National Youth Poet Laurete and yet her inaugural poem has been banned and challenged. Click here for poem video.

Sound familiar to what we are seeing today in massive book bannings with the "writings deemed subversive, decadent, or at least contrary to [American exceptionalism]?"  It is the same as challenges to books today. 

Thank you for reading this blog and please recommend to friends and family who will enjoy it.