George M. Johnson wasn’t shocked when they found out their book “All Boys Aren’t Blue” was already being banned across the country, a mere five months after its initial publication in 2020.

“By the time we got to January (of 2021), I had 21 states (ban the book),” Johnson said in an interview with VICE. “We were now reaching a real crucial point of changing the direction of education in this country, who has a right to tell stories in this country, in a very dangerous way.”

“All Boys Aren’t Blue” is not a unique case. Discussions are sparking across the country regarding the banning of books that some consider dangerous for readers, often due to subject matter being categorized as sexually explicit or involving LGBTQ+ identities, race or religion. Sept. 18–24 marks the commemoration of Banned Book Week across the country, and calls awareness to the conversation of free speech, censorship and exposure to controversial topics.

Banned Book Week has been acknowledged since 1982 after activists around the country noticed an uptick in efforts to restrict access to books, according to Banned Book Week’s official website. Since then, authors, scholars and activists from both sides of political arguments have used the week to bring awareness to the controversial nature of book banning.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in book banning around the country, according to the Washington Post. A rise in activist groups and politicized movements against books have snowballed the issue into major conflict that has made its way to the ballot box and school board meetings.

Historically, banning books occurs on a local scale, according to the New York Times. Usually, individual libraries and schools decide what books they want to keep and which ones they do not want the public to have access to. With the increase of these pro-censorship groups, more libraries and school districts are feeling pressured to take books that are deemed problematic off of the shelves.

Authors are feeling this pressure in their writing process, too, as they toe the line of using their narrative voice, and fearing the repercussions it may create. Shaun David Hutchinson, author of “We Are the Ants,” said he was surprised by how quickly — and easily — his work was repressed in an interview with VICE.

“Usually if a book is challenged, it stays on the shelves,” Hutchinson said. “(There are) forms that have to be filled out and procedures you have to follow. But books were being pulled off the shelf immediately.”

In the past few years, a trend in state legislation of taking the initiative to restrict content is worrying activist groups, like PEN America, who keep up with First Amendment violations and restrictions.

“They are not just a challenge in an individual school system or library, but legislation being introduced in statehouses that would affect the availability of books all over the state in every school and library,” said Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, on PBS NewsHour.

According to PEN America’s data, 26 states have at least one documented banned book. In New York, there have been 12 attempts to ban books from across the state. Many of the books have been banned for their depictions of sexual assault and racism, which has also ignited the conversation along party lines.

Though book banning is perceived as a politicized issue, there are attempts by both political parties to censor books from classrooms and libraries. John Sargent, a former chief executive of Macmillan Publishing, said activists from both the left and right have attempted to ban books.

“It’s happening on both sides,” Sargent said in a New York Times interview. “It’s just a different mechanism. On the right, it’s going through institutions and school boards, and on the left, it’s using social media as a tool of activism. It’s aggressively protesting to increase the pain threshold, until there’s censorship going the other way.”

Johnson echoed this sentiment, and said they believe that book banning should not be a divisive political issue, but a conversation in representation, specifically the inclusion of under and misrepresented communities, like the LBGTQ+ community and people of color.

They urged the public to take caution and consider the impact the censorship of these texts could have on young people who don’t see themselves in the books they read.

“We don’t just write these books because we want our story out there. All of our books are the maps that lead the youth and the teens to that road,” Johnson said in an interview with VICE. “When you take that map away from them, they wander aimlessly in this world until they are able to find that map or unfortunately until the world consumes them.”

This week, the Daily Orange will be publishing a series of stories about Banned Book Week and the response from the community.

Published on September 19, 2022 at 2:42 am