Banned, Challenged and Essential: Who Decided What We Read?
Episode 81
What happens when someone else dictates what is or is not allowed to be read?
In this episode, we explore the history and purpose of Banned Books Week, why book challenges and censorship have become increasingly common, and why the freedom to read matters to readers, writers, educators, and communities alike. We share the books that have shaped us, discuss why so many enduring classics continue to be challenged, and highlight the authors, librarians, and organizations working to protect access to diverse stories. Whether you agree with every book or not, this conversation is a reminder that stories have the power to educate, challenge, and connect us, and why preserving that choice is worth defending.
SHOW NOTES:
History
This Year
Why are we Bringing Attention to it?
Books we support and would like to address
Manifesto Library
Authors Against Book Bans
History:
Banned Books Week takes place annually, at the end of September to the beginning of October depending upon the calendar. In 1982, it originated as a call to attention to the rise in the number of books being banned across the US by Judith Krug of the American Library Association and the Association of American Publishers
This Year:
Dates: October 4–10, 2026
Theme: “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read”
Focus: Raising awareness about censorship and supporting public access to diverse ideas and stories.
Why are we bringing attention to it?
Pen America quote & graphic
The Normalization of Book Banning–“In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common. Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. For many students, families, educators, librarians, and school districts, book banning is a new normal.”
Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop warns: “When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part.”
Books we support & would like to address (as authors and readers):
Hope:
Jodi Picoult –Nineteen Minutes published in 2007 has 142 bans According to PEN America reports tracking school book restrictions. She’s the bestselling author of My Sister’s Keeper and Small Great Things
The book is banned not for the school shooting scene but for “explicit sexual content and nudity.”
Her book The Pact has also faced several bans as well.
Charlotte’s Web –According to Reading Partners. Back in 2022 a group of parents in Kansas tried to ban Charlotte’s Web because they said that talking animals were “unnatural and blasphemous as humans are the highest level of God’s creation. https://readingpartners.org/blog/five-more-childrens-books-you-didnt-know-were-banned
Donna:
Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur–explicit content, trauma & violence, feminism
The Circle, David Eggers--dystopian novel, marked “to be destroyed” by Rapid City, South Dakota school administration for sexual content. A documentary followed “To Be Destroyed” which explores the controversy it stirred
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley–banned for normalizing sexuality, drugs and atheism. Dystopian novel that warns of a society under authoritarian control, becoming so distracted by technology that they don’t even realize they are being stripped of their freedoms
1984, George Orwell–for sexual content. This novel warns of a totalitarian state where society is under the watchful eye of its government who uses mass surveillance, and fake news to alter history
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood– for explicit content, anti-religious themes and profanity, particularly in conservative leaning states. This novel is set in Gilead, a totalitarian, fundamentalist regime that overthrew the United States government. Facing a crisis of widespread infertility, Gilead's rulers strip women of all rights and force the few remaining fertile women, called "Handmaids," into reproductive servitude.
**See “Writing Resistance," Episode 48
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain–for profane language, racial slurs and violence. This book has been republished, editing out all 219 racial slurs with the word slave.
Manifesto Library in Portugal–in partnership w/ Dua Lipa’s Service 95 Book project. It houses 100 physical copies of banned, censored and challenged books including The Handmaid’s Tale at the historic Livraria Lello.
“This library is a shrine to books that have disappeared, to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control, and to readers who refuse to be told what book they are allowed to read. You are invited to visit and decide for yourself what belongs on these shelves. Because sometimes the most subversive thing you can do is read a book and then talk about it.” –Dua Lipa
Authors Against Book Bans- host read-ins, create awareness through community outreach and create an awareness of the current legislation surrounding the censorship of books.
SOURCES & LINKS
American Library Association https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned
Banned Books Week https://bannedbooksweek.org/
Pen America: Banned Books https://pen.org/banned-books-week/
Manifesto Library https://www.service95.com/manifesto-library-launch
Authors Against Book Bans https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/
DO NOW: Create your own awareness by educating yourself, determine what you can do to promote choice in reading and the prevention of book banning.
Authors Talking Bookish https://www.authorstalkingbookish.com
Hope Gibbs, author of Where the Grass Grows Blue https://www.authorhopegibbs.com/
Donna Norman-Carbone, author of All That is Sacred & Of Lies and Honey https://www.donnanormancarbone.com
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