Why We Should Stop Celebrating Banned Books

This post was originally written in November 2022

I paid a lot of money for my graduate degree in Library and Information Science and have spent my entire adult life working in the book world, first in public libraries for 16 years and now at an indie bookshop for the past two. I'd like to think I'd be the first to rhapsodize about the power of stories and representation, especially for those young people to whom our society rarely grants the privilege of validation and the opportunity to dream large and endlessly.

But the fascinating thing about working in public libraries was that a large number of the kids and families I worked closely with were only minimally interested in reading–and so their interest in book banning was minimal, their outrage nearly nonexistent.

These were kids of color and queer kids and queer kids of color whose worlds were tough, sometimes in ways I found haunting.  Many were poor; some had a caregiver in jail or struggling with addiction. Skipping school was common; several dropped out entirely. Many engaged in various, often dangerous risk-taking behaviors. Some kids were shuffled around between family members who couldn't or wouldn't care for them.

So people in their community want to ban books featuring kids like them? My kids truly couldn't care less, partly because many of them weren’t readers to begin with, but also because they'd never expect more from a world that seemingly already abandoned them ages ago.

This was a real eye-opening thing for me: to see how passionately we want to defend kids' right to read when what the most marginalized of those kids need is something else, something so much more. Good food; shoes and warm clothes; safe shelter and safe neighborhoods; equitable classrooms and other institutions; internet access; affordable healthcare, including mental health care and affirming health care; restorative justice vs criminal justice; an adult or adults who show up for them regularly and see a whole, deserving person full of promise and potential.

I wouldn't be the first person in line to argue fervently in favor of access to representative literature. I'd be among the first, but I wouldn’t be at the head. What my kids needed was safety and security first, and representation second.

The beginning (and end) of much banned book activism

Have you ever seen a banned book display in a library or bookstore? They often feature eye-catching graphics, like cardstock flames to evoke book burning or caution tape that mocks the idea that banned stories are dangerous. In my many years in public libraries, I’ve seen books wrapped in chains, spray painted signage, and many (so many) bunting banners. On some level, I understand this: these displays are fun to make and typically achieve their intended purpose of drawing attention to the idea that yes, book banning is a very real thing.

Ten years ago, I didn’t hate these displays, because ten years ago, book challenges were typically brought to us by a single community member—sometimes a parent, other times just a concerned adult—whose need to see a book banned was often quelled by simply hearing them and having a conversation about their uneasiness with a particular title. Sure, sometimes those challenges would escalate to a formal challenge, but those challenges would inevitably fail and that would be that. 

Today’s book banning efforts are different in terrifying ways: they are organized and often backed by powerful organizations, including by elected officials on local, state, and federal levels. In the past, a book challenge usually came from a mom down the street from the library whose kid read a book that made the family uncomfortable. Today, people who feel threatened by the increasing visibility of marginalized communities wave around lists of hundreds of titles they’ve never read but are certain must be inappropriate for children and teens. They’re creating laws to keep these books out of schools and libraries. They’re criminalizing the educators who share them. They’re clawing their way back towards a life that kept a lid on Black voices, queer voices, and voices of color (indeed, towards a life in which these people were all kept in their “proper place”) and they are dragging us all with them.

Book Riot has been following and covering organized book banning and censorship attempts in recent years. Click here to read from their archives.

So yeah, man, those cutesy banned books celebrations and displays frustrate the hell out of me, because the demonization of BIPOC and queer kids’ identities has a profound, enormously consequential impact that ripples so far beyond just access to stories by and about people like them, and I am tired of cheeky puns that obscure or diminish the real harm of today’s book bans and challenges. Book challenges have evolved over the past several years, and so too, therefore, should the way we treat them.

Marginalized people need legislation that protects them. Banning stories about certain people insinuates that they're dangerous; and dangerous people must be punished, including through the creation of laws that protect the good and the innocent: straight, white, cisgender, Christian.

Pen America wrote an exhaustive report on all the book banning attempts across the country. They continue to update their journalism, so read about it here.

Representation and legislation are wrapped up in one another in the sense that increased visibility shatters stereotypes and renders us less scary to one another, and when we better understand people, perhaps we're less likely to criminalize the “other.” But they're not entirely linked: marginalized people may be able to live without seeing themselves in books, but may find it more difficult to endure a government that creates laws which reduce or eliminate their rights. And if your government thinks you're dangerous, who's to say your neighbor down the street won't think you're dangerous, too? And what might that neighbor do to you if they view you as a physical or moral threat?

As librarians, educators, booksellers, and book lovers, I hope the full, far-reaching impact of bans will always be at the explicit forefront of our conversations about them. I hope we'll continue to fight challenges not just so we can continue to enjoy a rich diversity of literature, but also to staunch, each in our own small way, the mounting dehumanization of already targeted people who need, more than anything, safety. In the tapestry that's being woven to deny people of that safety, book bans are just one of many, many threads.

Please, no more cute puns and displays. But if they’re absolutely necessary, don’t let the message get lost in the “celebration”—that while book bans are a threat to our right to read, they are, more importantly, also one piece of a larger attempt to vilify people whose rights and lives are currently under attack. Let's not diminish this reality and allow the world of books and stories to become one more path towards injustice.