To follow its annual tradition, the Banned Books Coalition promotes awareness of the nationwide trend of banning books from public libraries by holding Banned Books Week from Sept. 22 to Sept. 28.
During this week, the Coalition encourages people to host and attend events that bring attention to the importance of access to information, and the threat that book banning poses to freedom of information.
The week culminated on Sept. 28 with Let Freedom Read Day, which urges people to prepare to vote for the freedom to read and help protect the reading community. The website offers different tasks for people to complete to achieve this goal.
“Sometimes people or groups have issues with books, and they feel like they should limit access to those books,” said the Urbana Free Library’s part-time children’s librarian Rachel Vellenga. “They feel like a taxpayer-funded thing, like a library, shouldn’t offer those books.”
When a book is “challenged,” the action of its place in a library is being questioned by citizens or parents. After a book is challenged, it has the possibility of being banned and removed from the library. The list of banned books varies from library to library.
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Since Jan. 1, a bill signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker has made the action of banning a book from a public library illegal. Illinois has become the first state with a legislature that outlaws book bans.
Additionally found on the Banned Books Coalition’s website, is the list of the top 10 most challenged books of 2023 compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
The list includes the titles of the books, the reasons why they were challenged and the amount of times they were challenged.
“Ultimately, the person responsible for what a child is reading is the parent,” Vellenga said. “And so we encourage parents to have discussions with their children and to look at what they’re reading.”
According to the library media specialist at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High Amanda McFarlane, the most common reason for a book to be challenged is the presence of LGBTQ+ themes.
Of the top 10 most challenged books of 2023, seven were challenged due to their LGBTQ+ content.
McFarlane believes that most parents who advocate for banning books are making decisions to protect their children, but end up taking away the choice for other students and their parents.
“I tell the students, ‘I fully respect and expect your parents to set guidelines for you,’ and those guidelines are between families, ‘but I would never want to censor and take out a book from a library,’” McFarlane said. “So I guess that’s the main difference, is censorship is totally taking something away when guidelines are something that, honestly, we should all have in place.”
However, this push to “protect” students from content seems to have backfired on book-banning advocates.
“Even after I do these lessons this week, so many kids go and try to find those books on the shelf that we talk about,” McFarlane said. “So ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ was completely checked out last period, because that has been banned (at other libraries).”
During Banned Books Week, McFarlane gives lessons on challenged and banned books to spread awareness of the issue. Additionally, she creates “wanted” posters that advertise books available to check out in her library that have been banned in other libraries. These posters not only share the titles of such books, but also the reasons why they were banned.
McFarlane said that students are often “outraged” that some of their favorite books are being challenged and their position on library shelves is being threatened.
Banned Books Week presents educators with a unique position to introduce complex topics to students with the simple action of taking away their rights to read. McFarlane uses Banned Books Week as an opportunity to discuss book banning with students and how this relates to other aspects of their freedom.
“Students need to know not to take their rights for granted, because people can still fight to take them away,” McFarlane said. “And talking about books and things that they know, it’s a really easy way for them to access that information.”
