The Right to Read
Art by emj
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are all endowed with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and one of his own sources of happiness was undeniably reading. Jefferson owned about 10,000 books in his lifetime, and in 1815, he wrote, “I cannot live without books.” That same year, he sold over 6,000 volumes from his personal library to the government; these books were used to begin rebuilding the recently-burned Library of Congress. But if Thomas Jefferson were a high schooler today, he would find what he described as his “canine appetite for reading” stifled by the ever-rising tide of book bans.
Book Bans by the Numbers: A Growing Threat
Book bans are a rampant problem in the U.S. According to PEN America, there were 6,870 book bans in the 2024–2025 school year (see the top ten and the full index). The American Library Association (ALA) recorded challenges to almost 2,500 unique titles in 2024. (Note that their lists are different because one is by academic year and the other is by calendar year). These numbers show an alarming increase—more than eight times over—when compared with the prior two decades; from 2001–2020, an average of 273 unique titles were challenged per year. The rise of bans is largely due to organized, right-wing activist groups like Moms for Liberty who, in 2021, decided to wage war on schools and public libraries. Horrifyingly, their push for censorship has been successful—almost 23,000 books have been banned nationwide since 2021—and these attacks on our right to read show no sign of ending soon.
The success of these groups hinges on one effective tactic: inciting such fear in school and library boards, administrators, and elected officials that they choose to self-censor rather than fight back. Pressure groups and government organizations initiated 78% of demands to censor books last year, and in 2022, PEN America found that only 4% of bans began with a formal filing procedure. The other 96% were initiated internally by school administrators and board members. When these administrators and other officials remove books before the titles are challenged, it is known as “obeying in advance.” It means that books are disappearing from shelves without the public even knowing it’s happening. In fact, this compliance has already caused negative ripple effects: some libraries have terminated librarians perceived as too supportive of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In 2025 alone, at least three librarians have been fired over Pride displays, including one in Georgia, one in Missouri, and one right here in Massachusetts. (To be transparent, the terminated Massachusetts librarian is me. I was fired after putting up a Pride display. The patrons supported my display but the director tore most of it down anyway, then fired me for defending the display. I am currently fighting for my job back through my union.)
These kinds of challenges have become so common that people are growing numb to the danger of banning books. But these challenges happen every year, in every state—including Massachusetts. In our state, from 2022 to 2024, 46 titles were challenged or completely removed from library shelves; 22 of these attacks took place in just 2024. Though far less than Texas’s 1,514 challenged titles of 2024, Massachusetts’s 22 bans are more than any other state in New England.
Even when these bans take place elsewhere, they often affect the authors and illustrators who call Massachusetts home. For example, Flamer, a graphic novel by Massachusetts author Mike Curato, is on ALA’s nation-wide list of the top ten most banned and challenged books of 2024. In the last five years, 115 other titles by Massachusetts-based authors and illustrators have been challenged or banned, including the works of high-profile authors like Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, and Alex Gino. We cannot let ourselves become complacent, just because we are in a blue state, and though it might be tempting, we can’t despair of making a difference, even as the number of bans becomes overwhelming. So how can we fight back? In the last section of this article are several easy and effective ways that anyone can get involved—including one pivotal, time-sensitive action item!
The Demographics of Book Bans: An Erasure of Identity
Regardless of where the book bans take place, it’s important to recognize that book bans disproportionately attack minority groups, particularly the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. The Washington Post conducted a statistical analysis of book banning data from 2023 and found that 36% of banned books highlighted BIPOC characters, and another 43% of bans targeted books with LGBTQ+ themes. Of the ALA’s top 10 most challenged books of 2024, six titles have LGBTQ+ characters, and four follow BIPOC main characters.
Despite claims to the contrary, many of these books contain little to no sexual content. For example, the picture book And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, tells the true story of two male penguins who formed a pair bond (for life, as all penguins do), and then hatched an egg together. It was published in 2005 and topped the banned books list in 2006, where it continues to appear today, with one challenge last year and seven the year before. Challengers say the book is “anti-family” and that it contains illegal obscenities. In reality, this adorable story highlights love, acceptance, and inclusion, and is a sweet tale of family and adoption. If it were the story of a heterosexual penguin pairing, it would be considered child-friendly; it is only claimed to be sexually explicit because both penguins are male.
That said, some banned books, particularly those for older audiences such as tweens and teens, really do depict difficult situations, including mental health conditions, bullying, sexual assault, racial violence, and gender and sexuality-based discrimination. However, these books help facilitate important and necessary conversations about these topics at a time when readers are likely to be experiencing those situations themselves.
For example, just this past month, the town of Danvers, Massachusetts was all in a flap about eighth graders reading All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The novel follows two young boys, one Black and one white, and depicts how police brutality changes their lives. Some parents were upset because the book includes violence and profanity, and while it was not officially banned, parents have opted 5% of students out of the class. Supporters of the book argued that police brutality and racism are very real problems many in the U.S. will experience.
Denying our children the opportunity to learn about these topics creates a cascade of issues. For those who are not likely to experience the situation firsthand, restricting access to these books is akin to closing a window into what those circumstances are like for others. For those who belong to the minority groups these kinds of books focus on, it’s important for them to see themselves and their experiences represented in the media they consume, to help validate and affirm their identities. As Jason Reynolds, one of the authors of both All American Boys said, “For a lot of us, it doesn’t always feel like you’re banning the book itself. Sometimes it feels like you’re banning the people that those books are about, that you’re saying that those lives are lives that should only exist in the shadows.”
Book bans erase identities and lived experiences, which can have devastating effects on vulnerable and underrepresented groups. This is especially true in cases where trauma plays a role. For instance, this past summer, the public library of Watertown faced backlash because they included the picture book, A Map for Falasteen, by Maysa Odeh, on their second grade recommended reading list. This book is based on the author’s grandmother’s real experiences of the Israel-Palestine conflict in 1967. She fled her homeland while pregnant, with her seven children in tow. The two youngest, one of whom was an infant, did not survive the journey. Despite the dark truth of her grandmother’s story, Odeh crafts a child-friendly tale of connecting to one’s culture through family and love, with only one brief, age-appropriate reference to the war. Today, this book may be helpful to children whose families have fled Gaza because of the current Israel-Palestine conflict.
In fact, I myself am a children’s librarian, and last year a child—maybe about ten years old—visited my library and shared with me that he and some of his family had recently fled Gaza. He went to our non-fiction section and found our country books. He brought a book about Israel to the desk, opened it to a page with a map, and showed it to me. He wanted to explain to me how the map was wrong, and he didn’t understand why we had no books in our children’s non-fiction section about Palestine. As our conversation continued, he began to talk about how he had seen members of his family killed before he came to the U.S., and I realized that he was looking for books that could help him work through that trauma and feel less alone. Some Watertown parents say that A Map for Falesteen isn’t appropriate for kids, but the reality is books like this one are age-appropriate ways to help kids understand and process complex issues in the world around them. Taking those titles away does a huge disservice to young readers.
A Chain Reaction: The Far-Reaching Effects of Book Bans
Discrimination and censorship are spreading outward from book bans into a variety of other areas, both federally and locally. For instance, Carla Hayden was the first African American and the first woman to serve as the Librarian of Congress, and she was the first professional librarian to hold the position since the 1970s. She was appointed to the role by President Barack Obama, and was unceremoniously fired via a two-sentence email from the Trump Administration in May 2025. Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, claims that this decision was made because, “There were quite concerning things that [Hayden] had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” Leavitt does not seem to realize that the Library of Congress does not lend books to children the way a public or school library does. Instead, the Library of Congress serves as a research resource for members of Congress. Like book bans that target LGBTQ+ and BIPOC characters, Hayden’s termination marginalizes and disenfranchises minority groups. After her termination, Hayden warned people about the dangers of book bans, saying, “An illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule. And if you cannot restrict a people from learning to read, you must limit its scope. And that is the danger of making sure that people don’t have access.”
Closer to home, Somerville Public Library, Reading Public Library, and a Newton arts center have all recently received bomb threats for hosting Pride events. Each of these three attacks targeted children. In Franklin, a group of conservative individuals is pushing for the bill H.2042 to be passed. This bill would make it legal to prosecute librarians, teachers, and museums with up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for distributing materials that are considered “harmful.” This vague language makes it easy to claim materials are “harmful” if they so much as feature LGBTQ+ characters, such as And Tango Makes Three, or deal with difficult topics, as in All American Boys. The good news is that H.2042 has very little support—only about 100 citizen co-sponsers. Promisingly, several bills that would protect our right to read are currently under consideration, including one known as An Act Regarding Free Expression. The 2025–2026 session is the third time that this bill has been under consideration and is the first time that it has made it to a vote. Despite Massachusetts being a leader in the creation of this bill, we have now fallen behind the thirteen other states that have already passed similar legislation. It is vital that Massachusetts residents keep advocating for our reading freedom, that we support legislation like this, and that we stay aware of attempts to ban books and censor our educators.
Fighting Back: Easy and Effective Ways Anyone Can Get Involved
Right now is a pivotal moment in Massachusetts’s battle against book bans. S.2696 is the latest iteration of An Act Regarding Free Expression, which works to prevent book bans. The vote for S.2696 has been moved up to Thursday, November 13th. Look up your state senator here and contact them before the end of the day Wednesday, November 12th to urge them to support S.2696. (More information and a sample email are available here.)
You can also reach out to your representatives and legislators to ask them to support our right to read by calling, emailing, or sending them a postcard. Mass Freedom to Read has postcards you can print out yourself, or you can visit one of these participating indie bookstores and pick them up there. Some of these stores even have postcard writing parties! You can share what the right to read means to you, or if you’ve been affected by censorship and book bans. Voicing your experiences can be powerful—as Mike Curato says, “The point of book banning is erasure and intimidation. When we stop sharing our stories, we are letting book banners win.”
One of the best ways to battle book bans is by getting involved at your local library. Libraries love statistics, so checking out books by and about members of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities is an easy, direct, and measurable way to tell the library staff and administrators that your community supports diversity. The same concept holds true for library programs, so make sure to go to as many events celebrating diversity as you can. If your library doesn’t have any such events, ask for some! I’ve worked as a librarian for several years, and while we do not save anyone’s personal data, we do keep track of headcounts for all our programs as well as checkout numbers for each and every circulating item in our collection. That information informs future programs we run and which books we keep on our shelves, making this a fantastic way to show your support.
Many libraries put up book displays for Pride month, Banned Books Week, and the months of Black History, AAPI Heritage, Women’s History, and Hispanic Heritage. If you see one of these displays, check out a book from it! (Seriously, librarians love it when you take out books from our displays.) If you don’t see one of these displays, you can ask for it—your library is there to serve your community, and that means prioritizing the interests of people like you. If you’re purchasing a book, consider shopping at your local indie bookstore (a list of indie bookstores you can filter by town is available here). This is far better for the entire literary world than funding mega corporations like Amazon and Target that prioritize profit over all else. Many indie bookstores host a variety of events for all ages that you can find community at as well.
Most importantly, the best way to exercise your right to read is by reading! Books that regularly feature in ALA’s top 10 most challenged include:
Gender Queer (Maia Kobe)
All the Boys Aren’t Blue (George M. Johnson)
The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)
Flamer (Mike Curato)
The Hate You Give (Angie Thomas)
Tellingly, being banned isn’t the only characteristic that these books and their authors have in common—they’re also all award winning. A great way to fight back against bans on these and similar books is to visit your local library and check out a copy, or purchase one from an indie bookstore. Support school teachers who include these books in their curriculum. Place these books in the hands of your children, or read them yourself. I’ve personally read almost every book mentioned in this article, and I recommend them all. So find a title that appeals to you and start protecting your right to read!
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