It's that time of year- all the cool librarians strap on our superhero capes and dust off our soap boxes to scream about banned books! We may only officially recognize Banned Books Week the last week of September, but let's talk about, read, and celebrate banned and challenged books every single day.

Questions/comments/concerns/recommendations? Email us at ragingromantics@nopl.org.

Books we mention:

• Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
• All Boys Aren't Blue by George M Johnson
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
• And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson
• A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss
• Prince and Knight by Daniel Haack
• The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman

Sources:

• "American Library Association reports record number of demands to censor library books and materials in 2022,” American Library Association, March 22, 2023. https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/03/record-book-bans-2022
• "Book Ban Data", American Library Association, March 20, 2023. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data
• "American Library Association reports record number of unique book titles challenged in 2023", American Library Association, March 14, 2024. https://www.ala.org/news/2024/03/american-library-association-reports-record-number-unique-book-titles
• “Let Freedom Read,” Daniel Boone Regional Library, September 25, 2003. https://www.dbrl.org/adults/let-freedom-read
• “An Author’s Apology” in “Mrs. Warren’s Confession,” George Bernard Shaw, 1902, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1097/1097-h/1097-h.htm
• “About” Banned Books Week Coordinator, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, 2024. https://bannedbooksweek.org/about/
• Five Laws of Library Science, S. R. Ranganathan, 1931.