Banned Book Week: What's It About?

Banned Books Week is an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read while raising awareness about current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. Librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types have joined together for more than 40 years in shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.

• A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.
• A banning is the removal of those materials.

Last year, 2,452 unique titles were challenged, the third highest number ever documented by ALA and significantly exceeding the annual average of 273 unique titles over the period from 2001–2020.