Are you wondering what to purchase for those folks on your holiday shopping list?
Consider gifting banned books!
The number of books banned since 2021 has increased dramatically. Pen America noted 6,870 bans within the 2024-2025 school year alone. This means that unless students frequent public libraries and/or bookstores, they not only lack access to banned titles, but they also lack awareness that these books exist.
Book bans harm students, educators, librarians, authors, publishers; it is extremely important to defend the right to read, learn, teach, create, and share history, information, ideas and stories. As we continue to stand against book banning, we also need to do all we can to improve access to the books banned in schools and some library systems.
For gift-giving, purchasing banned books is a great idea! When we purchase banned books for ourselves or those we know well, we gain or provide opportunities: to view a variety of perspectives and expand worldviews; to be assured that diverse ways of being are welcome and are valued; to develop empathy and understanding; and to learn about histories and cultures not taught or discussed in schools.
When we purchase banned books, we affirm authors and their stories as we help to support their livelihoods. Banned authors now living are greatly impacted by book bans. Not only do they lose revenue from sales, but many authors also have noted fewer speaking and signing invitations, publishers no longer willing to take risks on their books, and cruel episodes of bullying. All of this takes an emotional toll as well as financial loss.
Books such as 1984, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bluest Eye, and many, many more banned classics would be welcome gifts. However, current authors such as Clint Smith, Isabel Wilkerson, Maia Kobabe, Susan Kuklin, Gayle E. Pitman, George M. Johnson, Laurie Halse Anderson, Patricia McCormick, Elizabeth Acevedo, Stephen Chbosky, Jacqueline Woodson, Malinda Lo and so many more would be very appreciative of your purchases (and their books are wonderful!) For example, Ban This Book by Alan Gratz would be a great gift for a child in the middle grades and would make a wonderful family read-aloud. This is a delightful story of a fourth-grade girl who runs a banned books library out of her school locker after learning that her favorite book has been removed from her school library.
Visit the UCG Banned Books shelves in the church library if you would like to look through some of the books before shopping. Independent booksellers, such as the Lynx, are great places to find the perfect gift.
On behalf of the Banned Books Team of the Racial Justice Committee (a branch of the Justice League),
Sherrie Raymond