Writing

Banned Books Week 2026

by Bjorn Munson

Once again, it’s Banned Books Week, an annual, nationwide celebration of the freedom to read that I’ve posted about since 2018.

Whether you need an excuse to crack open a book, want to add a title that’s not in your usual reading mix, or just want to stick it to The Man, I highly recommend web-strolling over to the American Library Association’s website specifically for Banned Books Week. There, you’ll find this past year’s most challenged books and all sort of other resources. And if you need a historical list of challenged or banned books in the U.S. to expand your options, Wikipedia has your back.

There is truly something on that list to offend everyone.

And I’m serious about that: I’ve read some of the books on that list, some books in part or in whole that I’ve found offensive… and not in a “Why do we have to read Johnny Tremain when My Brother Sam is Dead is clearly superior?” kind of way. (Incidentally Johnny has, to my knowledge, not been challenged, whereas Sam has been challenged frequently).

No, I mean I find the ideas, viewpoint, and values of not just some characters, but that of the authors which I find offensive. However, I find it useful because I will sometimes meet those people or people who espouse those viewpoints in the real world… and it’s helpful to understand what the #$%@ they’re thinking. (Also, that whole, “being a writer” thing: I don’t only write characters with whom I agree).

In years past, I joked that the thought of people reading banned books would send scores of scolds and censors to their fainting couches. Sadly, said scolds have not been idle.

PEN America, an organization as dedicated to the freedom to write as the American Library Association is dedicated to the freedom to read, has compiled some bad news for folks who like information to run free. There are orchestrated attacks on public libraries on multiple fronts. And if you thought that the types of books being challenged and banned more recently seems to “skew” in a certain direction, there might be something to that.

My own hypothesis is that there’s a nontrivial percentage of these censors who both resent and want to repeal not just the First Amendment, but the Enlightenment. Neither of the articles above prove that hypothesis per se, but neither do they dissuade me from testing the hypothesis further. As for understanding some people’s motivation, there is a quote in the second article that hits home:

I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen. –Judy Blume

As a parent, heck, as a human, a wish the world didn’t have as much suck as it does. But it does. The phrase “facts don’t care about your feelings” has entered public discourse bigly in the past decade and one fact of life is that your children are going to be exposed to things that might upset or scare them. Some of those things might even be ideas. There’s a reason I have been very careful with what media my kids consume as much as I can in this hyper-online era. I want them to enjoy being kids… to have freedom from some of that suck for a time. But I also want them to have freedom to become curious, to grow into healthily skeptical adults as they inevitably realize that the current adults haven’t got it all figured out.

In short, when they’re upset or scared or confused by what the world reveals, I want them to be able to talk to me.

And time and again, banned or challenged books have been a good conduit for those discussions. Heck, they’re good for me: putting some of the world’s suck in a narrative wrapper that’s easier to contemplate.

It occurs to me too that Banned Books Week has been a habit for me for over a decade, but I haven’t shared all the titles I’ve read every year. So, for those of you reading this far, perhaps you’re wondering what banned books I’ve been reading to make sense of the nonsensical (or you’re just a troll trying to determine how depraved I am with my wonton book-reading). Here are the books:

I should note that the “multiple” books isn’t something so virtuous as, since last year, I’ve been reading an average of two to three books per month… and only some of them are what the would-be ministers of information have banned or challenged. This should also underscore that I don’t think you should feel compelled to start and finish a book within Banned Books Week. It takes me a few weeks to read most books and some dense ones take months. According to Storygraph, my average time to read a book is 17 days this year.

One thing I have done, especially since I have increased the number of books I read a year, is to read pretty much all the books that my kids are reading. This alone may sound heretical to the amateur book censors, but just as I indicated being a safe person for my kids to ask questions of, doing so has also led to some really interesting conversations with them about the world and worldviews. I should note that some of the books assigned to them that I’ve read are not banned or challenged and many contain sex and violence and disturbing non-fiction facts. Funny that.

So whether it’s a way to better understand what your kids are thinking, an excuse to revisit some classics (another main category in my list above), or even to understand what the fuss is about (what I’d think is my last main category above), I definitely suggest picking a book or three to read from some of those lists before the end of the year. Because, funnily enough, many of those banned books are full of beauty and insight about a world that doesn’t have to suck.

Kinda makes you wonder about book banners’ motivation, huh?

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