There’s a Book for That: Banned Books Week

2 October 2020

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“A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They’d rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

Celebrate the freedom to read! It’s Banned Books Week (September 27-October 3) and the theme for 2020 is “Censorship is a Dead End. Find Your Freedom to Read.” The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) released the Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books from the past decade as it launched this year’s Banned Books Week, which serves to “rally readers to the cause of First Amendment protections and remind them to remain vigilant about continual threats to our freedom to read.” Included on the list are a number of Penguin Random House books, including these most recently challenged:

BEYOND MAGENTA: TRANSGENDER TEENS SPEAK OUT by Susan Kuklin

Reasons: challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, for “its effect on any young people who would read it,” and for concerns that it was sexually explicit and biased.

SEX IS A FUNNY WORD by Cory Silverberg, illustrated by Fiona Smyth

Reasons: challenged, banned, and relocated for LGBTQIA+ content; for discussing gender identity and sex education; and for concerns that the title and illustrations were “inappropriate.”

I AM JAZZ by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas

Reasons: challenged and relocated for LGBTQIA+ content, for a transgender character, and for confronting a topic that is “sensitive, controversial, and politically charged”

THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood