Book Ban Week 2025 (Oct 5 - 11) - "Censorship is So 1984"

October 5- October 11 is the 2025 Banned Books Week! 

The 2025 Banned Books Week theme this year is— Censorship Is So 1984. Join the movement! Book bans have been on the rise, and as censorship continues to rip through our community, now, more than ever, we need to be the loudest!

"During Banned Books Week—and especially on Saturday, October 11, the Let Freedom Read Day of Action—we must make noise together. Here’s how we can stand up:

• Defend our fundamental rights to read and speak freely by proudly using them.
• Speak out on behalf of those already targeted, intimidated, or silenced. Read and share their stories.
• Voice your concerns about censorship in a letter to the editor or by calling your elected representatives. Ask them to defend the right to read in your community.
• Gather to support our libraries and librarians, teachers and students, authors and bookstores."

-United Against Book Bans, ALA

On October 11, take action to "help defend books from censorship!" Stand up for those in our community—writers, publishers, educator, libraries, and booksellers! Here are some Promotional Tools to help amplify and spread the word about this year's theme.

"Show us how you’re taking action on social media by using the hashtags #LetFreedomReadDay and #BannedBooksWeek!"

Join the SCBWI staff! 

On October 7th, SCBWI will be posting pictures of their favorite banned book and why! Let the world know why you like the book and why it is important! Take a picture of your favorite picture book (early reader, middle grade, young adult), and post it on your social media. Show them that our voices can't be silenced!

Banned Book Resources

Here are some resources to continue the fight beyond Banned Book Week!

• Banned and Challenged Books Bookshop 
• A expansive list of banned books that you can purchase to help support creators

• SCBWI Banned Book Video Playlists
• Check out SCBWI's Banned Book Playlist, full of panel discussions with industry professional, censorship activists and more!
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• Consider joining organizations that are on the front line of the fight!
• Unite Against Book Bans
• Pen America
• Authors Against Book Bans

Visibility. Joy. Hope.

Small acts of activism.

Big forms of resistance. 

Our voices cannot be silenced,

Or our stories, erased. 

Our stories need to be heard.

We shall be heard.

Together, we are strong.

-Justin Campbell

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.

The American Library Association releases their list of the "Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021"

The battle over what other people's kids can read rages on...

As announced by the ALA, 

The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. Of the 1597 books that were targeted, here are the most challenged, along with the reasons cited for censoring the books:

#1 Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images

Read Maia's response to the banning in the Washington Post here.

#2 Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit

#3 All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and because it was considered to be sexually explicit

#4 Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for depictions of abuse and because it was considered to be sexually explicit

#5 The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, violence, and because it was thought to promote an anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda

#6 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references and use of a derogatory term

#7 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and degrading to women

#8 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Reasons: Banned and challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit

#9 This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Reasons: Banned, challenged, relocated, and restricted for providing sexual education and LGBTQIA+ content.

#10 Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin

Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit. 

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On -- our books can change lives for the better.
Lee

Batchelder Award Criteria Change: Name the Translator

Since 1968, the Mildred L. Batchelder Award has garlanded the "children's book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originating in a country other than the United States and in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States during the preceding year."

It is the Newbery for translated children's books. 

And the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has adjusted its criteria to recognize translators.

At its meeting in January 2022, the ALSC board approved the following change to the Batchelder Award submission criteria: 

"The translator(s) shall be named on all titles submitted for consideration. The translator(s)' name(s) shall appear, at minimum, on the title page along with the author(s)' name(s), and ideally the translator(s)' name(s) shall appear on the cover along with the author(s)' name(s) as well."

This change requires publishers to name the translator on/in children's books submitted for the award—as has been urged for all translated books by (most recently) the #TranslatorsOnTheCover campaign, boosted by SCBWI.

This change is expected to help normalize naming the translator of a book wherever the author is named, as is set forth by the Authors Guild and PEN America. This is the convention in a number of countries already, and US publishers are increasingly observing this standard. 

Besides crediting, a range of translator rights have lately been identified as needing attention. Royalties and retention of copyright for the translation stand to help all translators and are musts to make the field more inclusive.

First, however, translators must be named and seen. The ALSC board saw us. 

Read the press release about the revised criteria. 

Download a list of past Batchelder Award and Honor winners (PDF).

Disclosures: The 2022 Batchelder Award went to the Yonder imprint of Restless Books for Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba, illustrated by Miho Satake, in my translation. This was a massive, will-always-remember-where-I-was surprise and honor. Restless Books named me in both of the ways mentioned in the revised criteria. / I submitted a stakeholder comment in support of the criteria revision as SCBWI TC. The Batchelder Award selection committee and the ALSC board are distinct entities.

My name is Avery Fischer Udagawa, and I have been honored to blog global reads this month. I serve as SCBWI Translator Coordinator (see Translation in SCBWI) and SCBWI Japan Translator Coordinator (see Ihatov).

The American Library Association Releases Their List of the Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2018

In 2018, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) tracked 347 challenges to library, school and university materials and services. Overall, 483 books were challenged or banned in 2018, with the following comprising the top 11 most frequently challenged:

1. “George,” by Alex Gino
Reason: for including a transgender character

"George" by Alex Gino was the #1 Most Challenged Book in the U.S. in 2018

2. “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” by Jill Twiss, illustrated by E. G. Keller
Reasons: for LGBTQIA+ content, political and religious viewpoints

3. “Captain Underpants” series, written and illustrated by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: for including a same-sex couple, perceived as encouraging disruptive behavior

4. “The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas
Reasons: for profanity, drug use, sexual references, deemed “anti-cop”

5. “Drama,” written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
Reason: for LGBTQIA+ characters and themes

6. “Thirteen Reasons Why,” by Jay Asher
Reason: for addressing teen suicide

7. “This One Summer,” by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Reasons: for profanity, sexual references, certain illustrations

8. “Skippyjon Jones” series, written and illustrated by Judy Schachner
Reason: for depicting cultural stereotypes

9. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: for profanity, sexual references, religious viewpoint

10. “This Day in June,” by Gayle E. Pitman, illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Reason: for LGBTQIA+ content

11. “Two Boys Kissing,” by David Levithan
Reason: for LGBTQIA+ content

There are eleven this year rather than the traditional ten, as "This Day in June" and "Two Boys Kissing" were tied for challenges.

You can find out more about the Top Banned Books of 2018 list here.

Illustrate and Write On (even if you worry it might be challenged or banned.) Sometimes, the gatekeepers aren't going to be pleased, but your message, your book, will make all the difference and transform a child or teen's life for the better. And that's worth fighting—and illustrating and writing—for.

Lee