Banned Book Club

Banned Books, Keelatud Kirjandus, is a museum in Tallinn, Estonia that preserves banned, censored, and burned books from around the world. We tell the stories of our books and their authors, and provide resources for learning about the history of censorship, contemporary challenges, and the free exchange of ideas.

Our Story

A few words about us

We believe that the topic of literary censorship is highly relevant and important at this moment in time. Around the world many nations, institutions, and movements restrict access to written material for a wide variety of reasons. Our museum explores the thin lines and grey areas in each one of these cases by presenting the stories of restricted books and engaging the public in a dialogue about the free exchange of ideas.

Our goal is to study the phenomenon of free speech. We do not take a political stance, but rather we enable the public to learn about the topic for themselves by telling stories, educating about history, and providing free access to relevant research and journalistic material.

Mission
It's all about preserving books and liberating people.

The impact we create with our experience is as transcending as our books are concrete and physical. We aim to expand and develop consciousness as a whole by starting on the individual level. We do this through our museum, events, discussion groups, bookclub, podcast, and educational programme.

Vision
We dream of a world in which people can freely share, challenge, and refine their ideas.

The value and skill of self-expression strengthens the public and makes it more robust against outside influence. If there is one country that understands the importance of this freedom and has experienced what it takes, it is Estonia. Our initiative will continue this journey and help others along the way.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released new data documenting book challenges throughout the United States, finding that challenges of unique titles surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022 numbers, reaching the highest level ever documented by ALA. Read the full announcement.

OIF documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship, more than the previous two years combined (2,571 in 2022; 1,651 in 2021), as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023. Four key trends emerged from the data gathered from 2023 censorship reports:

• Pressure groups in 2023 focused on public libraries in addition to targeting school libraries. The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.

• Groups and individuals demanding the censorship of multiple titles, often dozens or hundreds at a time, drove this surge.

• Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.

• There were attempts to censor more than 100 titles in each of these 17 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Creators who have at least one book banned in the prison system of the u.s. state of texas for "security" reasons as of september 2022. (The list of books banned by the state for any reason, available here, is much longer.)

• Justin Seitz

• Supreme Understanding

• Tim Hindle

• Kre Kre ( 1970 )

• George L. Jackson ( 1941 - 1971 )

• Ajamu Niamke Kamara ( 1953 - 2005 )

• Helen Fouché Gaines

• Abbie Hoffman

• Reginald Major ( 1926 - 2011 )

• Robert Goldwire

• Cureton Steven

• Nyeem Mitchell

• Kevin Salt Rocc Lewis

• Michael Sims

• Gary Clark ( 1943 )

• Crystal Lacey Winslow

• Sanyika Shakur ( 1964 - 2021 )

• Neil, Theresa

• Sagar Rahalkar

• Marshall “Eddie” Conway ( 1946 - 2023 )

• Richard Mansfield ( 1945 )

• PaPa Sak

• Jamonz Ross

• Roger Morris ( 1938 )

• Rob Whitaker

• Koffi Hallman ( 1970 )

• Ian Neil

• Josh Lospinoso

• Al-Saadiq Banks

• Dave Ebert

• James R. Payne

• Brandon Whitting

• Samrat BHOOPLI

• Mike Meyers ( 1961 )

• Bryace Todd Jones

• Roger Gastman ( 1977 )

• Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson

• Kevin D. Mitnick ( 6 August 1963 - 2023 )

• Jennifer Niederst Robbins

• Andrew MacDonald ( 1933 - 2002 )

• David Carmack

• Tegan Broadwater

• Robert Greene ( 14 May 1959 )

• Abraham Lee

• Vickie Li

• David F. Walker ( 1968 )

• Soma Halder

• Jack C. Stanley

• Katie Hafner

• John Lee Brook

• Luc Gesell

• Barbara Casey

• Lance Henderson

• Rob Percival

• Tony Stacy

• James "Jinx" O'Connor

• Damen "Mr. C" Corrado

• Rachel Pearson ( 1983 )

• Pavel Yosifovich

• Nikhil Abraham

• Gus Khawaja

• Ric Messier

• OccupyTheWeb

• Brian Messenlehner

• Paul O'Donnell ( 1961 )

• Wendel Withrow

• Chad Orzel

• Edward A. Kutac

• Joey Green

• Julitta Korol

• Erick S. Gray

• Herbert C. Covey

• Ralph Morrison

• Thomas Petruzzellis

• Eric Stover

• Danny Korem

• Lance J. Hoffman

• T. Jeff Williams

• Craig Berg

• Art Blajos

• Chris Blatchford

• Luke Wroblewski

Dear Authors and lllustrators,

I want to update you regarding the Book Fairs Share Every Story/Celebrate Every Voice case.

First, I want to apologize on behalf of Scholastic. Even if the decision was made with good intention, we understand now that it was a mistake to segregate diverse books in an elective case. We sincerely apologize to every author, illustrator, licensor, educator, librarian, parent, and reader who was hurt by our action. We recognize and acknowledge the pain caused, and that we have broken the trust of some of our publishing community, customers, friends, trusted partners, and staff, and we also recognize that we will now need to regain that trust.

This case will be discontinued starting with our next season in January. For the remaining fairs in the fall, Book Fairs is working on a pivot plan as we speak. We will find an alternate way to get a greater range of books into the hands of children. We remain committed to the books in this collection and support their sale throughout our distribution channels.

Our commitment to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors and stories remains foundational for our company. Scholastic believes in the basic freedoms of all individuals. We oppose discrimination of any kind on the basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or national origin. We are committed to providing access and choice, and to helping young readers develop critical skills needed to exercise democracy and build a society free of prejudice and hate. Equally important, we pledge to stand with you as we redouble our efforts to combat the laws restricting children's access to books. This will not be our last communication on the matter, but we wanted to get this initial Word out. We look forward to working to create a better and more just future together.

Sincerely,

Ellie Berger

President

Scholastic Trade Publishing

Hi! Does anybody know of any online book clubs for banned books?

Or does anybody wanna…start one?

I’m looking a comfy group to join that doesn’t cost money or conflict with my busy schedule of being sick all the time.

(if this isn’t the right community to post this is, let me know)

Scholastic found that it either had to give in to the hardliners who wanted to ban books for children or to not allow that, and they seem to have decided to give in.

https://pen.org/ - PEN America https://bannedbooksweek.org/let-freedom-read-day/ - banned books week official website https://www.ala.org/ - American Library Association

And of course if you have a local public library system, get a library card and support them. This goes beyond just going to the library as well, go to budget meetings and council meetings if you can. Stay vigilant to local ongoing funding plans within your city and county, and show up to defend libraries to make it clear you aren't there to fuck around.

As well, if you are a parent go to your local school board meetings and stop fascists from taking your board over. Get involved in your childs PTA, do activism work, and push back against Moms for Liberty. If you have the time, your kids public school needs you to show up and support them.

And obviously, keep reading. Thanks for the awesome comments and discussions this past week.

I'm considering more book highlights in this community too beyond banned books week, especially on the more obscure banned/challenged books. Would there be any interest in that at all?

Kicking off this week with a bang of a nobel prize winning author, and for good reason. This book was deeply disturbing to read but extremely important. It was such a beautifully upsetting piece of literature. The book was intense, yes, but it felt like I was reading thru a beautifully crafted painting.

Big warning though for child sexual abuse in this story, if you picked it up and have not read it yet.

Of course, this book is very contentious. Not only is it written by a black woman talking about race, but has the above content as well.

Have you read it? Any thoughts or feelings?

Here's the Wikipedia page regarding it's censorship and bans in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bluest_Eye

This award winning book is about a young Nepalese girl who is sold into sexual slavery in India. I've read it, and it was extremely touching and horrifying. It was incredibly necessary to provide a glimpse into a world that many kids suffer thru every day around the world.

Of course, the book has been banned or challenged 24 times this year in the US.

Have you read this book? There was also a movie made about it as well.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.one/post/5019122

It’s the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week, a tradition that started in 1982. This year, the theme is “Let Freedom Read!” in honor of record-breaking efforts to censor books now sweeping the nation’s libraries and schools. Yesterday, I published a story about Wyoming’s Cambell County Public Library, which, after a controversy over sex-ed books, last year became the first library system in the country to officially break ties with the venerable American Library Association, leaving its staff without opportunities to apply for grants, attend conferences, and fulfill their profession’s continuing education requirements.

Not to be outdone, Moms for Liberty, the crusading parents’ rights group whose annual conferences I’ve covered for the last two years, has declared this is “Teach Kids to Read Week.“ Here’s how the group’s founders explained it in a statement to the conservative website Post Millennial:

“When…those pushing for so-called ‘Banned Book Week’ continue to try to keep porn in schools we must fight back. America’s kids no longer know how to read and rather than highlighting that issue, these groups want to allow kids to access pornographic materials and other inappropriate materials. This is unacceptable, and we are proud to continue to fight for America’s children and encourage kids to learn how to read.”

Moms for Liberty’s attempt to connect literacy instruction to “pornographic materials” is part of a relatively new campaign to capitalize on the failure of a progressive movement in the teaching of reading. A spate of recent reporting has revealed that a popular approach called “balanced literacy,” which encouraged children to use context clues and guess when they couldn’t decode a word, didn’t actually help many kids learn to read. Moms for Liberty claims now that teachers are focused on in LGBTQ and anti-racist lessons instead of teaching kids how to decode words. I explained in a piece a few months back:

[Moms for Liberty] charges that schools have overstepped their bounds by teaching students progressive values—acceptance of all sexual and gender identities, for instance, or how to fight against racism—instead of focusing solely on academics. Now, these groups have taken up the failure of balanced-literacy instruction as further evidence of the utter failure of progressive education in perhaps the most important skill a child learns in school. In the process, they’ve launched the latest version of an age-old political fight over reading. Basically, the argument from parents’ rights groups can be boiled down to this: Don’t believe us that public schools have sacrificed education at the altar of progressive educational schemes? Just look at how miserably they’ve failed in teaching our kids to read.

“There is a lot of time being spent on ‘social-emotional learning’ and not so much time being spent on effective reading instruction in the classroom,” the Moms for Liberty account tweeted on May 21. “Why is literacy not being prioritized like sexual education is currently? Why does a 5yo need to learn about gender identity?”

What is the exact scenario in which an inclusive curriculum somehow replaces phonics-based reading instruction? Moms for Liberty has yet to explain exactly how this happens. Meanwhile, if you’d like to celebrate Banned Books Week by reading a few of the most censored, there’s a list here.

I read this book per a local book club who reads banned books exclusively, and I was unfortunately not shocked to hear that it was the most challenged book in the US in 2022. This touching graphic novel about the authors lived experiences and journey with their gender identity was challenged a total of 151 times last year.

This book was specifically one of the catalysts last year that propelled the book challenges to the national mainstream as it was used to amplify their platform. It was surreal reading before it reached national attention as well.

I've been copying over Wikipedia censorship info, but there is legitimately too much to copy over to here that I would likely go over the post word limit. Don't believe me?

See for yourself here. (some artistic sexuality depicted in the Wikipedia article, you'll get what I mean)

I have this book on my bookshelf.... but I am ashamed to admit I have yet to read it due to the intensity of it. (Yes, it was required school reading but I was sick when they read it) I will pick it up someday, but unsure when.

What are you thought's on this book? I know it's iconic as hell for obvious reasons, and the irony of banning it is honestly quite funny.

Per Wikipedia:

In the years since its publication, Fahrenheit 451 has occasionally been banned, censored, or redacted in some schools at the behest of parents or teaching staff either unaware of or indifferent to the inherent irony in such censorship. Notable incidents include:

• In Apartheid South Africa the book was burned along with thousands of banned publications between the 1950s and 1970s.[77]
• In 1987, Fahrenheit 451 was given "third tier" status by the Bay County School Board in Panama City, Florida, under then-superintendent Leonard Hall's new three-tier classification system. Third tier was meant for books to be removed from the classroom for "a lot of vulgarity". After a resident class-action lawsuit, a media stir, and student protests, the school board abandoned their tier-based censorship system and approved all the currently used books.[78]
• In 1992, Venado Middle School in Irvine, California, gave copies of Fahrenheit 451 to students with all "obscene" words blacked out.[79] Parents contacted the local media and succeeded in reinstalling the uncensored copies.[79]
• In 2006, parents of a 10th-grade high school student in Montgomery County, Texas, demanded the book be banned from their daughter's English class reading list.[80] Their daughter was assigned the book during Banned Books Week, but stopped reading several pages in due to what she considered the offensive language and description of the burning of the Bible. In addition, the parents protested the violence, portrayal of Christians, and depictions of firemen in the novel.[80]

This is one of my favorite books, and it still haunts me. Every detail of it feels like it could be a reality, and even a decade later after it was written it still feels like its about the present. It's like it a story suspended in time, increasingly more relevant. I read this book as a teenager in school and it solidified my ideals as a feminist. The ending after the epilogue is especially haunting.

Every time I hear about this book being banned, it feels like a cruel irony. The sexuality of the book is not erotic, it is saddening.

Have you read this book or seen the show at all?

Copied from Wikipedia, it's censorship information:

The American Library Association lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[56] In 2019, The Handmaid's Tale is still listed as the seventh-most challenged book because of profanity, vulgarity, and sexual overtones.[57] Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".[58]

In 2009 a parent in Toronto accused the book of being anti-Christian and anti-Islamic because the women are veiled and polygamy is allowed.[59] Rushowy reports that "The Canadian Library Association says there is 'no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada' but says the book was called anti-Christian and pornographic by parents after being placed on a reading list for secondary students in Texas in the 1990s."[60]

A 2012 challenge as required reading for a Page High School International Baccalaureate class and as optional reading for Advanced Placement reading courses at Grimsley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina because the book is "sexually explicit, violently graphic and morally corrupt". Some parents thought the book is "detrimental to Christian values".[61]

In November 2012, two parents protested against the inclusion of the book on a required reading list in Guilford County, North Carolina. The parents presented the school board with a petition signed by 2,300 people, prompting a review of the book by the school's media advisory committee. According to local news reports, one of the parents said "she felt Christian students are bullied in society, in that they're made to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs by non-believers. She said including books like The Handmaid's Tale contributes to that discomfort, because of its negative view on religion and its anti-biblical attitudes toward sex."[62]

In November 2021 in Wichita, Kansas, "The Goddard school district has removed more than two dozen books from circulation in the district's school libraries, citing national attention and challenges to the books elsewhere."[63]

In May 2022, Atwood announced that, in a joint project undertaken with Penguin Random House, an "unburnable" copy of the book would be produced and auctioned off, the project intended to "stand as a powerful symbol against censorship".[64] On 7 June 2022, the unique, "unburnable" copy was sold through Sotheby's in New York for $130,000.[65]

This book came out in 2007 and was Jodi Picoults first book to debut at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. The book is an unpacking of a school shooting, following the events that lead up to it and the impact after. It's really really really heavy, so heavy that although I have the book on my to read shelf I haven't touched it yet.

Have you read this book at all? Do you have any thoughts about it?

This book was banned over 7 times last year alone by different school districts across the US. But ironically.. it's because it discusses sexuality and teen dating violence.

This book was adapted into a film of the same new, and I had never actually seen nor read it until I volunteered to be on a committee to review the book after it was challenged within my local school district.

It's been a year since I read it. The book stuck with me in more ways than one, probably the biggest being the way it so succinctly captured the way trauma manifests as a child. The 20th anniversary edition contains an extra letter that wraps things up to a much more... "happy" ending.

Have you read this or seen the film at all? What are your own thoughts?

Per Wikipedia:

Reasons for censorship include content considered to be anti-family, sexually explicit, and content involving homosexuality, offensive language, drugs and alcohol, nudity, descriptions of masturbation, and suicide.

I will be pulling from the ALA as well as other sources, as well as listing reasons why it was challenged or banned if I can. I've read quite a few, and I have some thoughts.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/429137

Shadow libraries, sometimes called pirate libraries, consist of texts aggregated outside the legal framework of copyright.

Today's pirate libraries have their roots in the work of Russian academics to digitize texts in the 1990s. Scholars in that part of the world had long had a thriving practice of passing literature and scientific information underground, in opposition to government censorship—part of the samizdat culture, in which banned documents were copied and passed hand to hand through illicit channels. Those first digital collections were passed freely around, but when their creators started running into problems with copyright, their collections “retreated from the public view," writes Balázs Bodó, a piracy researcher based at the University of Amsterdam. "The text collections were far too valuable to simply delete," he writes, and instead migrated to "closed, membership-only FTP servers."

More recently, though, those collections have moved online, where they are available to anyone who knows where to look.

The purpose of this site, then, is to have all these libraries at our fingertips when in need of a certain text or book.

As Aaron Swartz put it:

"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves."

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

Read the full text of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto