What You Can Do To Liberate Banned Books

“Banned Dr Suess book The Lorax” by GoodNCrazy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

In celebration of October being National Book Month, we’re gonna look at banned books.

According to the First Amendment Museum

“’Challenging’ a book is the attempt to ban a book from a library, school district, institution, organization, government entity, retailer, or publisher based on its content. Challenges can either result in the book being banned or they can be overturned and the book remains in circulation at the organization.”

For the majority of these challenges, the reason tends to be something along the lines of, “If they don’t have access to it, they can’t know about it”, which in most instances, is dangerous censorship usually based on beliefs, not facts.

“Banned Books Week 2010 Display” by San José Public Library is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Reading banned books is, first and foremost, a stellar way to learn what they don’t want you to learn. From the anti-forestry theme of The Lorax to the LGBTQIA+ positive themes of Perks of Being a Wallflower to Tony Morison’s black-girl-real-journey of The Bluest Eye, banning these books disallows millions to gain knowledge, feel seen/represented, or be inspired to write their own books. In the last 2 years, Pen America has seen the amount of banned books, in the United States alone, jump 28% which accumulates over 4,000 titles. Step into your local library, and think what it would look like sans 4,000 books – is there a chunk of titles missing or would it be the whole damn place?

“Read a Banned Book Today” by katmeresin is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Whether it’s 10% or 100% of your library that may be gone from subtracting these 4,000 titles, there are still ways to save the legacy of many banned books. Just because a book is banned doesn’t mean it’s gone forever – it just might not be readily accessible to all of the public. Now ask yourself, “What are some things we can do outside of the realms of protesting, voting, and local and national government involvement (all of which are very important to protecting our educational and pleasure rights)?”

“Banned Books Weeks 2010” by San José Public Library is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

To prevent all the travesties of book banning, here are just a few ways to spark that rebellious reader to protect the anti-publishing establishment:

Dive into Your Own Collection

Look up the banned books list from the American Library Association and see if you have any titles in your personal library or your local library and consider a few options.

Translate Banned Books

Take the opportunity to translate these books – as the world starts to diversify its people and languages, translating banned (and all books) is a smart way to break down borders and unite so many of us from different backgrounds.

Copy Banned Books

Copy the banned books (scan, download, photograph, speech-to-text annotate) to keep the history of these books alive for current and future generations. In the same path, if you’re in a place where the books are in danger of being banned, constantly check out these books from your local libraries and share them either by handing them off to your neighbor or meeting a buddy at the branch nearest you for a handoff (scenarios will be different across the country due to inequities of modernizing blibliotecas). So many pieces of literature have truly been lost to time that could be so beneficial to society and we need to slow and stop that process by not losing these titles.

Tiny Free Libraries and Banned Book Clubs

Fill and/or build tiny free libraries in your community and start a banned book club as these are ways to equally share and protect any type of books consistently and constantly.

“Banned Books Display.” by San José Public Library is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

There are thousands of incredulous reasons why more and more books are being banned and there are equally, if not more, ways to protect books from being banned (books can also be taken off the banned list when contested). Start with making sure you get a library card – most of which are free or have a small affordable fee – and allow yourself and others to take back the power of books that is being taken away from us. Remember, the more you know, the less can be taken away from you. 

“Worse Crimes than Burning Books” by ecastro is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Support MoveOn.org and its efforts to protect libraries and slow the banning of books with this LeVar Burton banger of a t-shirt (or you can donate if you want to use the rest of your budget on books). 

Screenshot from MoveOn.org. Get the shirt right here.