Introduction to Banned Books Week
September 21-27, 2014

Banned Books Week was started in 1982 by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of College Stores to raise awareness of censorship problems in the United States and abroad. For over 25 years, it has remained the only national celebration of the freedom to read. In 2011, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, and PEN American Center signed on as co-sponsors of the event.

In 2008, the sponsors collaborated on a website specifically devoted to Banned Books Week as a way to consolidate the material we include on our individual sites in one space. Go to the Banned Books Week website at bannedbooksweek.org. Bannedbooksweek.org also includes an event section, where booksellers, librarians, community groups, and other may list their Banned Books Week events to publicize them to the public and to display the celebration's wide reach. Banned Books Week has been celebrated in every U.S. state and several other countries.

Book censorship of all kinds – even book-burning – continues today. Challenges may come from parents, teachers, clergy members, elected officials, or organized groups, and arise due to objections to language, violence, sexual or racial themes, or religious viewpoint, to name just a few. In 2011, the ALA counted 326 challenges. Many other cases go unreported.

In 2012, for example, in Tucson, Arizona, all books used in the Tucson Unified School District's now-suspended Mexican American Studies program were removed from the curriculum, a move that was vigorously objected  to by the Kids' Right to Read Project. In Sumner County, Tennessee, John Green's award-winning Looking for Alaska was banned from every classroom in the county based on the complaint of one parent. Several books that taught younger students age-appropriate lessons about tolerance and non-traditional families were removed from libraries and classrooms, including Todd Parr's The Family Book in Eerie, Illinois, and Patricia Polacco's In Our Mothers' House in Davis County, Utah. In 2009, the principal of Landis Intermediate School in Vineland, New Jersey, literally tore pages out of the school's copy of the nationally acclaimed poetry anthology, Paint Me Like I Am, written by teens for teens after one parent raised concerns over the "age-appropriateness" of Jason Tirado's poem, "Diary of an Abusive Step-Father."

Banned Books Week is celebrated during the last week of September by booksellers, librarians, authors, readers, students and other friends of free expression. Some create banned book displays. Others stage public readings of challenged titles or sponsor discussions of free speech issues. We explore some of the many ways that booksellers can observe Banned Books Week in this handbook.

We hope the Banned Books Week Handbook will inspire you to celebrate the freedom to read and to come up with new ideas for dramatizing the issue. If you do participate, we hope you will tell us about your experience so we can expand and improve the handbook. When you’re ready, click on the link, We’re Listening!

Thanks for your support!

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