Staff report
Let Freedom Read. A fREADom Festival at Covington’s Roebling Point Books & Coffee on Saturday is a festival of banned books and free expression.
October 1-7 is Banned Books Week, an annual weeklong event that highlights the value of and open access to information and brings together the entire book community in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. Reading advocate and film star LaVar Burton is national honorary chair of the 2023 Banned Book Week.
Saturday, October 7, is Let Freedom Read Day, a day of action against censorship.
The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom reports that book bans and attempted book bans are likely headed to a record high in 2023.
While schools have long been the predominant target, challenges to books have extended to public libraries.
The ALA documented 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and challenges to 1,915 unique books. That’s a 20% increase over 2022.
PEN America, a nonprofit that raises awareness about threats to freedom of expression, found that during the 2022-23 school year, there were 3,362 instances of individual books banned in schools, affecting 1,557 unique titles, and reflecting an increase of 33% compared to the previous school year.
Between 2021-22, parent-led groups coordinated book censorship and, in some instances, state legislation is ramping up pressure.
What constitutes a book ban?
It’s any action taken against a book based on its content as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened lawmakers or other government officials, that leads to an otherwise accessible book being completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.
Make your way to Roebling Point Books & Coffee on Saturday because it’s simply a place that celebrates books of all kinds — and the purchaser chooses with their purchase, based on their own interests and curiosity.
The Banned Books Week Coalition includes American Booksellers for Free Expression, American Library Association, Amnesty International USA, Association of University Presses, Banned Books Week Sweden (a collaboration between Sweden PEN and the Dawit Isaak Library), Children’s Book Council, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Freedom to Read Foundation, Little Free Library, National Book Foundation, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America, People for the American Way Foundation, and PFLAG. Contributors include American Society of Journalists and Authors, Authors Guild, Index on Censorship, GLAAD, and Project Censored. Banned Books Week is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and receives generous support from HarperCollins and Penguin Random House.