by Annabelle Smith
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” - Caesar A. Cruz
This year, from September 18-24, the nation celebrates the freedom to read with Banned Books Week. This year at The Phantom, we’re going to celebrate this freedom for the month of September, touching on everything from controversial classics to children’s books banned from school library shelves.
In 2021 alone, the American Library Association tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials. For reference, this number was 156 the year before. These books cross genres and topics, from Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The books have very little in common with each other. Some are written centuries apart. Some are children’s books. Some are so hated that they’re burned (Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan and This Day in June by Gale E. Pitman, illustrated by Kristyna Litten).
Yes, these books might feel very different. What does the children’s book And Tango Makes Three and The Handmaid’s Tale have in common? These challenged books are not about the same things. Some are about racial minorities. Anti-police sentiments. LGBTQ+ issues. Sex education. Drug use. They are lumped together as containing “divisive language,” and discussing “too much of a sensitive matter right now.” They are taken off the shelves, put out of sight and out of mind.
This month, we put those books back on the shelves. At BISFA, we are all artists, so we know the importance of art as a conversation starter. Art should make you uncomfortable, make you think, and make you question what you accept as fact. To ban books is to ban voices and erase stories because they challenge the status quo, and if the process continues, it perpetuates the harmful idea that if something is different, it should be silenced.
We read banned books because we don’t agree with that. With a little bit of empathy, reading books that make you uncomfortable can expand your mind and your heart. This month, we’ll be learning about different books and genres that often face the most challenges, but for now, we focus on the importance of reading them. Reading is a form of resistance. It is to step out of ignorance and accept that, yes, some stories are uncomfortable. That discomfort, that realness, is what makes them worth reading.
Celebrate your freedom to read this month! The best part is, there isn’t just one way to do that. Whether you pick up a classic censored for political satire or a picture book written to teach kids about LGBTQ+ identities, every banned book read is a step towards acceptance. Ask a librarian about banned books this month and read, read, read.
To find a banned book to read, check out the American Library Association’s lists of the top 10 most challenged books: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
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