As books are banned in thousands of schools, school libraries, and public libraries, bookstores and others are fighting back in a variety of inspiring ways:
Noting that the majority of the wave of book bannings target "stories about people of color and members of the queer community" and that "unsurprisingly, Missouri is one of the states where book bans have been most prevalent," the Left Bank Books Foundation, St. Louis, Mo., has expanded its Literacy & Justice Project, which provides certain banned books free to anyone who requests them. Under the program, donations to the foundation have gone to provide hundreds of copies of the following titles to people across the country: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, Heavy by Kiese Laymon, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and Maus by Art Spiegelman. And now Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe has been added to the list.
Donations to the Literacy & Justice Project have also funded initiatives like stocking Little Libraries in local book deserts, providing books to hundreds of underserved students through River City Readers and the Angel Tree Fundraiser, and providing an expansive program of free author events.
Left Bank noted that a $20 donation allows it to send a copy of a banned book to anyone who wants it, while $100 donations allow it to sponsor a student for an entire school year." A $2,500 donation allows Left Bank to sponsor an entire classroom.
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Open Road Integrated Media has launched Free Voices, a marketing service "to fight book bans and enable challenged works to be discovered and purchased by readers everywhere."
Free Voices is open to all publishers with books banned or targeted for banning at schools, libraries, or bookstores. Each title will be featured in marketing vehicles that will reach highly targeted segments of "power readers" that have been identified by Open Road's data science and machine-learning technology.
Titles already featured include Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, "Hello," I Lied by M.E. Kerr, Always Running: Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA by Luis J. Rodriguez, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
"We could not believe more strongly in the First Amendment and the right to free expression," said David Steinberger, CEO of Open Road and chair of the National Book Foundation. "With Free Voices, we are going to fight book bans with the same proven ORIM marketing technology that already drives discovery and sales increases for more than 40,000 titles from over 100 publishers."
A portion of all proceeds from Free Voices will be donated to the Freedom to Read Foundation.
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The National Coalition Against Censorship plans "Let Me Speak," a celebration and annual benefit for free speech and its defenders November 13 in New York City. Author, producer, and rapper Raj Haldar will host. Free speech defender award recipients include John Sargent, former CEO of Macmillan, and Juno Dawson, author of among other titles, the often-banned This Book Is Gay. Benefit co-chairs include longtime First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and Audrey Barsella, communications manager at Sourcebooks.