Banned Books Week, September 22-28, 2024, is a celebration of the freedom to read and the resistance to censorship worldwide. This year’s theme is “Freed Between the Lines”. The American Library Association documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship, as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023. This was a 65% increase over titles challenged in 2022. Of the titles targeted for censorship, most were by or about LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals.
“As we’ve seen throughout National Library Week, as long as there are libraries, Americans’ right to read will not be overcome by censorship,” says Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, American Library Association President. “Freed Between the Lines” captures what’s at stake for our democracy: that the safety of our right to speak and think freely is directly in proportion to our right to read.
