Banned Books Week 2024 Resources and Book Love

Banned Books week in the USA is happening now (Sep 22-28, 2024) and there's so much you can do to get involved and help make sure that diverse books are available to the young readers who need them!

One great example is author Charlotte Sullivan Wild (Love, Violet - illustrated by Charlene Chua, FSG), who is creating Instagram slides for the week featuring queer picture books, on a theme each day. Here's Charlotte's first #QueerBookLove #RainbowBookLove post

Another cool initiative to check out is one I've created with Tasslyn Magnusson, WE ARE STRONGER THAN CENSORSHIP which aims to put the brakes on the runaway train of book banning by buying and donating two books for every one challenge or ban.

There are also a lot of great events this week celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of diverse books, including 25 panels* offered by EveryLibrary Live! Banned Books Week Fest and this Banned Books week event (both in-person and live-streamed) with Judy Blume.

PEN America is hosting live events in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Coral Gables, Florida, Austin and Dallas, Texas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Farmington, Utah. SAGE is hosting a Banned Books Week panel*, and the American Library Association has a list of banned books week events here.

There are lots more suggestions for things you can do to fight book banning, including BE STRONG: Things You Can Do About Book Banning, the American Booksellers Association's Right to Read Handbook, and getting involved with Sep 28, 2024 Let Freedom Read Day.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

*full disclosure: these include some online events where I am moderating or a panelist.

Unfulfilled: Amazon and the American Retail Landscape - a Report from Civic Economics and the American Booksellers Assocation

 Did you know that:

Approximately 29% of all revenue at independent bookstores immediately recirculates in the local economy. This translates to a local impact advantage of 109% that of chain competitor Barnes & Noble, and a massive 405% local impact advantage over Amazon. 

or that:

Civic Economics estimates that Amazon’s displacement of retail square footage increased from 621 million square feet in 2019 to 1.1 billion square feet in 2021. We further estimate that displaced retail jobs increased from roughly 1 million in 2019 to 1.75 million in 2021, even as Amazon’s distribution facilities became less labor-intensive.

To provide a visual reference to what has been lost, this displacement is the rough equivalent of 300 Malls of America, storefronts and space that simply do not exist, replaced by vast concrete boxes and tens of thousands of vehicles streaming out of distant industrial parks.

Check out the landing page for the study at Civic Economics here. and the PDF of the report here.

As we're all consumers as well as creators, this is well-worth considering.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Porter Square Books Writers In Residence Program - What an Amazing Trend To Start!

As reported in Shelf Awareness, Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts has launched a "Writers in Residence Program."

As the store explains on their website:

"In order to make the resources needed to write books more available to the writers and aspiring writers in our community, Porter Square Books will select two writers, one writing for adults and one writing for young readers, to be our 2019 Writers in Residence."

Not only are there perks for the two writers selected (including a staff discount on everything and access to the store office—a quiet space to work—after 5pm and on the weekends) but there are also responsibilities (including three event introductions, three pieces for the store's blog, dibs on the authors' book launch event for the book they worked on during the residency.)

You can find out more and apply here.

It's a great initiative on behalf of this one bookstore, and hopefully an inspiration for other bookstores to follow suit... Imagine the impact if all the 1,100 indiebound bookstores created their own "Writers in Residence" Programs. And then, if every bookstore in the country—no, the world!—participated, too.

And if the selection of these writers is made with an eye to #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #OwnVoices, it could really make an impact—starting one store, one writer, one book, and one reader at a time!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee