Banned Books Week
October 5 – 11, 2025 was Banned Books Week. It is incredible that we need a week like this in the supposed “Land of the Free.” Yet every year we see more coordinated and intensive efforts to ban books in our public spaces: libraries, schools, bookstores. This flies in the face of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In 2024, over 4,000 books were banned or challenged in states and municipalities across the United States. For context, that means that the USA banned more books in 2024 than were banned in Russia, a state notorious for its violations of free speech and expression. The USA has now almost closed the gap with the world leader of book banning, The People’s Republic of China. This is not the kind of company that any true American should wish to keep.
Book banning is based primarily on fear: fear of new ideas, fear of the different, fear of the unknown. As Laurie Halse Anderson said, “Censorship is the child of fear, and the father of ignorance.”
If we want to remain the “land of the free,” sometimes we must be the “home of the brave.”
The individual rights provided to us under the Constitution allow us to decide what we want to read, as well as what we do not want to read. To an extent it gives us the right to decide what our minor children read, though I caution that censorship rarely leads where one thinks it will. Those rights do not, however, extend to deciding what other people, or other people’s children, are allowed to read. Not in a free society.
I have made my career in a field that is based upon the fundamental principles of freedom of the press and the freedom to read. Unequivocally, there is no scenario in which banning a book is justified or benefits the public welfare. Books, even those deemed subversive or dangerous, provide an opportunity to consider, to discuss, and often even to learn.
Banning books and underfunding public education are hallmarks of authoritarian regimes. An educated populace is more difficult to fool with lies and propaganda, and more likely to think critically. An educated public brings curiosity and solutions to the table, not fear and intolerance.
So, for Banned Book Week this year, I encourage everyone to buy, read, or gift a banned book. There are so many to choose from, and most would surprise reasonable and open-minded people. When it comes to books, it is good to remember that “the only thing to fear, is fear itself.”
Michael Kelly, Fairhaven
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