Who Decides What You Can Read?
September 22- 28 is national Banned Books Week and the theme this year is “Freed Between the Lines.” It is a week when the entire book community—publishers, writers, libraries, booksellers, and all of us at New York Book Forum—come together to champion the freedom to read what we want and highlight the dangers of selectively removing viewpoints and shared experiences from our schools and libraries.
We live in a time of hyperbolic rhetoric and increasing censorship with the rise in the number of challenged and banned books growing exponentially year after year. There has been a 128% increase in the number of banned books since 2021. It is notable that 47% of the books targeted for censorship are titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people. Florida and Texas continue to lead the country in the number of bans, but current data shows that the effort to blacklist certain books now extends to 41 states and 247 public school districts.
New York Book Forum supports freedom of expression and recognizes the need to use our organization’s voice to raise awareness of this issue. We celebrate the freedom to read what we want. We trust publishers to offer a wide range of viewpoints that allow individuals and families to make reading decisions for themselves.
If you want to explore programs and take action yourself, visit the links below:
The New York Public Library –Banned Book Week programs
The Banned Book Week on YouTube – features readers and authors exercising their first amendment right
The ALA (American Library Association) list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023