Banned Books Week is taking place this week from September 22nd-28th. The top 10 most challenged books of 2023 can be found here. This year’s honorary chair is Ava DuVernay On September 24th she’ll be in conversation with Youth Chair Julia Garnett at 2:00pm ET on the American Library Association’s YouTube channel.
If you are interested in learning more, here are some other online events this week:
Celebrating the Freedom To Read: Book Banning, Censorship, and Democracy on September 24th at 7:00pm ET
Selected Shorts: Banned Books with Host Judy Blume on September 25th at 7:00 pm ET (not a free event)
Beating Book Bans: Perspectives on Fighting Censorship on September 26th at 5:00 pm ET
We also have quite a few books about censorship and book banning if you want to learn more:
Book Banning in 21st-century America by Emily Knox
Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control by Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis
Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi
Young Adult Literature, Libraries, and Conservative Activism by Loretta M. Gaffney
Book Banning and Other Forms of Censorship by Carolee Laine
Censorship Moments: Reading Texts in the History of Censorship and Freedom of Expression edited by Geoff Kemp
Silenced in the Library: Banned Books in America by Zeke Jarvis
Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher’s Dilemma by Deborah Appleman
If you know someone impacted by book bans, there are several efforts to make these books available, including The Digital Public Library of America’s Banned Book Club project and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books UnBanned project.