Banned Books Week 2021

This year's Banned Books Week will be held Sunday, September 26 through Saturday, October 2. The 2021 theme is "Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us."

Banned Books Week is an annual event meant to draw awareness across the USA that books are still being banned and challenged in this country, as well as to bring attention to the harms of censorship. The American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles lists of the challenged books from reports in the media and from censorship reports made by librarians and teachers across the country.

The Banned Books Week Coalition

Sponsors:
American Booksellers Association
American Library Association
Association of University Presses
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
Freedom to Read Foundation
Index on Censorship
National Council of Teachers of English
People for the American Way Foundation

Contributors: American Society of Journalists and Authors, The Authors Guild, PEN America, and Project Censored

Banned Books Week is also endorsed by Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

The 2021 Most Challenged List

The ALA OIL compiled the following list. Says the Banned Books Week Coalition has explained that this year's list "includes titles that address racism and racial justice, as well as those that shared the stories of Black, Indigenous, or people of color. As with previous years, LGBTQ+ content also dominated the list". I have added touchstones (which are links to the works on LibraryThing) and original dates of publication for convenience.

1. George (2015) by Alex Gino
Challenged, banned, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, "conflicting with a religious viewpoint", and supposedly not reflecting community values.

2. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (2020) by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Banned and challenged because of "the author’s public statements" and the book containing "selective storytelling incidents", not encompassing racism against all people.

3. All American Boys (2015) by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Banned and challenged for profanity, drug use, alcoholism, the promotion of antipolice views, divisive topics, and supposedly being 'too much of a sensitive matter right now.'"

4. Speak (1999) by Laurie Halse Anderson
Banned, challenged, and restricted because of profanity, rape, and supposedly containing "a political viewpoint" and bias against male students.

5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) by Sherman Alexie
Banned and challenged for profanity and sexual references in the book and for sexual misconduct allegations involving the author.

6. Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice (2019) by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
Challenged for “divisive language” and supposedly promoting antipolice views.

7. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee
Banned and challenged for racial slurs, a “white savior” character, and perception of the Black experience; and for its negative effect on students.

8. Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck
Banned and challenged for racial slurs, racist stereotypes, and negative effect on students who read the book.

9. The Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison
Banned and challenged because of sexually explicit content and child sexual abuse.

10. The Hate U Give (2017) by Angie Thomas
Challenged for profanity and because the book was said to promote an antipolice message.

Definitions

A ban in this context is the removal of a book from a school, bookstore, or library for its content.

Challenges are attempts to remove books in those places based upon the objections of a person or group.

Restrictions limits who may access the books.

Jason Reynolds has been named Inaugural Honorary Chair of Banned Books Week 2021. He is an outspoken critic of censorship, the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature, and an author of two books (nonfiction and fiction) on the 2020 Top 10 Most Challenged Books list.

https://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2021/04/jason-reynolds-named-inaugural-hono...

We're now in the month when Banned Book Week starts. Does anyone here have plans for it?

I am, right this minute, making a bulletin board with the ALA posters and infographics and pulling for prominent display anything in our collection from the Top 100 BB of the Decade! :-) I hope to start some good discussion.

According to the definition of "ban" in #1, would it be a ban if the powers-that-be at Amazon decide to stop selling a book because they find its content to be offensive?

>5 cpg: Arguably, yes. I think it should be noted that with as large a distributor as Amazon is, that action can effectively hide or goes as far as to prevent the creation of specific books, especially those by authors aren't wealthy or already well known (that is, able to widely distribute their books through other sellers).

What's missing from my definition, though, is that a bookstore following its own policies on restricted content is often not considered a ban the way that a bookstore conceding to public pressure is. Amazon also creates complicated examples by showing its ability and willingness to immediately reinstate books by the most powerful.

Is it really a ban if the book removal lasts less than a day, when the store owner steps in to override employees who were following content policies? What about the works that are removed for content but are returned months after the authors replace the supposedly unacceptable content? Do "shadowbans" count, or do those restrictions mean something else within censorship?

I don't know how the OIF handles Amazon reports.

>1 aspirit: The 2021 Most Challenged List

I don't think it was clear before, so here is my clarification. This list for the Banned Books Week in 2021 was compiled from challenges in 2020.

This list for 2022 is of challenges made in 2021.