Firstly lets call out what book banning actually is: CENSORSHIP. Banning a book limits access, shuts down conversation, removes freedom of speech and the right to think for ourselves.
Book banning has not slowed down, in fact its on rise.. Here in the UK we have do not have national or government mandated bans however, schools and libraries are still removing books from their shelves. And removing books from shelves like this is a slippy slope to book banning land even if its not formally done here, removing books like this is still censorship in subtle font.
Earlier in the year a school faced massive backlash after using AI to review and remove books that it deemed inappropriate from shelf. Some of these titles include:
- Men Who Hate Women – Laura Bates
- Nineteen-Eighty-Four (graphic novel adaptation) – George Orwell
- Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
- We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Pageboy – Elliot Page
- The Good Ally – Nova Reid
- Queerly Autistic – Erin Ekins
Can you see the pattern here? A fair proportion of these books challenge ideas about sexuality, gender and gender equality. Interesting isn’t it? and this was just small selection this particular school removed nearly 200 books, full detail here. I find it very interesting that “the school itself reportedly acknowledged that its categorisation of the books had been generated using AI, while saying it considered the classification broadly accurate.”
What can we do this banned book week?
The index censorship has lots of resources and ideas but essentially:
- Read a banned book
- Get social – make some NOISE
Banned books aren’t protecting readers, they control the narrative about what stories are being told and deciding who gets to exist on the shelf. At stake isn’t just what we read, but our right to think freely and make our own choices.
These bans thrive on silence, so make make some noise:
- Talk about what you’re reading
- Share banned books
- Support libraries and authors who tell hard truths
The Freedom to read starts with us, every shelf, every story, every voice.
