Turning the Page on Book Bans, a guest post by Ashley Hope Pérez

In 2025, we’ve entered a new era of book banning, accelerated and intensified by state legislation and by falsehood at the highest levels of government. As the readers of this blog are painfully aware, book bans are not a hoax, despite the claims of the Trump-led Office of Civil Rights. PEN America sets the record straight in a clear, fact-based response. PEN counted more than 10,000 instances of school book bans in the 2023-2024 school year alone. This is nearly triple the number from the previous year, which was already unprecedented and alarming.

It takes courage to confront the reality of government suppression of ideas and identities. We need a firm stand for readers’ rights and determination to refute falsehoods and attacks on teachers, librarians, students, and communities.

But that’s not all we need.

We also need respite. We need play. We need connection. We need delight. We need immersion in worlds—past, present, future, and other—that reflect, transform, and challenge our current reality. We need solidarity. We need reminders of shared humanity. We need space to explore and reckon with the best and worst in human experience.

You won’t be surprised when I suggest where we might find these gifts in abundance: in the very books that have been disappearing from school libraries and—increasingly—public libraries. These books must be read. They need a reader’s attentive gaze scanning each line. They need an open heart and curious mind. They need us as advocates, not just for access to books, but for the gorgeous, delicious lived experience of reading them.

So alongside whatever else you are called to do to support readers’ access to diverse literature in your community, please do this: read banned books. Not only as an act of rebellion, but also as an act of joy and liberation.

I’m teaching a university class on banned books for the first time this semester. Many of my students are just a few years out of high school, and some have experienced restrictions on their access to books in school firsthand. They consistently remind me of the ways that book bans underestimate the maturity, experience, and sensitivity of young people. Together, we work to understand the social and political contexts that have allowed censorship to wash over the rights of student readers since 2021.

We also direct a significant portion of our time and energy to appreciating the value of banned books themselves. For the first time since I was a high school teacher in the early 2000s, I have a classroom library. (Okay, my “library” is a book cart of banned books that I roll down from my campus office and push into the middle of our classroom.)

During each class session, we take some time to sit together and read banned books. I encourage students to choose whatever banned books they want, to notice what pulls them in and to imagine reading alongside others who might appreciate or need that book. After we read, we spend time thinking about our own connections to the books we encounter as well as what they might mean to other readers, especially teenagers. We pay attention to how challenging or sensitive passages function as part of a literary whole, which is quite a contrast to the book ban movement’s relentless decontextualizing of any mention of sex, gender identity, racism, uncomfortable histories, or other content that has been made controversial.

Authors like me write honestly about difficult human experiences out of respect for teen readers. My students are especially sensitive to how readers very different from themselves might experience support, recognition, or solidarity because of an author’s willingness to confront painful topics. But high school students can’t benefit from books they don’t know exist.

That’s why I teamed up with 14 other banned authors and phenomenal illustrator Debbie Fong to create Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights. This anthology makes sure teen readers know what’s missing from their library—or the libraries of their peers across the country. It weaves together facts on censorship, strategies for fighting bans, and the powerful perspectives of banned creators captured in comics, fiction, personal essays, poetry, and more. Together, my fellow contributors and I sought to highlight both the harms of book bans and the power of the words that are being erased. I stuffed every in-between space full of lists of books and resources to help readers discover the beautiful works of literature that have been targeted in recent years. I hope Banned Together reaches and inspires many readers and advocates.

Let’s remember to delight in banned books as an integral part of our fight to preserve and restore access to them. Pleasure reading is a great way to rekindle joy in the face of adversity and ugly rhetoric. And I believe that the work we do will always be more effective if we root it firmly in the value of what we stand for, not just the harm of what we stand against.

Here’s a stand anyone can take. Post up in your library (or park, community center, place of worship, anywhere) and read a book that is missing from someone else’s library. When you encounter humor or beauty, a powerful critique or a description that you relate to exactly, think about who you could share it with. Start a text, send an email, post a sticky note by your desk. Maybe sometimes instead of “I can’t believe they banned this book!” the message begins with, “This book is so good…”

Because even as we need to keep telling the painful truth of book bans, we also need to take extra care to celebrate and elevate the unique gifts that each book offers.

Thank you so much for bringing banned books back to life by reading them.

Click images to enlarge.

Meet the author

Ashley Hope Pérez is the editor of the much-anticipated YA anthology, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights (Holiday House)and the author of three novels, including Out of Darkness. Out of Darkness was described by The New York Times Book Review as a “layered tale of color lines, love and struggle in an East Texas oil town,” selected as a best book of the year by both Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal, and awarded a 2016 ALA Printz Honor for Literary Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Despite being published in 2015 and never challenged until 2021, Out of Darkness has become one of the most frequently banned books in the U.S. Ashley’s advocacy for teens and their right to read includes public speaking, interviews, articles and opinion pieces, and a federal lawsuit filed with authors, students, and publishers.

A former public high school English teacher, Ashley became an author because of conversations with students in the library about what they wanted to read. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. She currently directs the Unite to Read Project, a two-year initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation to support public efforts to restore readers’ access to diverse literature.

SOCIALS:

Linktree: linktr.ee/ashleyhopeperez

Website: www.ashleyperez.com

Instagram: @ashleyhopeperez

About Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights

A dazzling YA anthology that spotlights the transformative power of books while equipping teens to fight for the freedom to read, featuring the voices of 15 diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators.

Books are disappearing from shelves across the country.

What does this mean for authors, illustrators, and—most crucially—for young readers?

This bold collection of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, essays, and other genres explores book bans through various lenses, and empowers teens to fight back. From moving personal accounts to clever comebacks aimed at censorship, fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens.

Contributors include Elana K. Arnold, Nikki Grimes, Ellen Hopkins, Kelly Jensen, Brendan Kiely, Maia Kobabe, Bill Konigsberg, Kyle Lukoff, MariNaomi, Trung Lê Nguyễn, Ashley Hope Pérez, Isabel Quintero, Traci Sorell, Robin Stevenson, and Padma Venkatraman; the collection is a star-studded must-read that packs strength and power into every last word.

Striking illustrations from Ignatz-nominated artist Debbie Fong pair perfectly with the searing, impactful narrative. Resources include tips from the Vandegrift Banned Book Club and other teen activists, as well as extensive recommended book lists, a How to Start Your Own Little Free Library flier, and more.

ISBN-13: 9780823458301
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 03/04/2025
Age Range: 12 – 17 Years

Filed under: Guest Post