10 Actions to Fight Book Bans

The number of challenged and banned books in the United States has soared in recent years. According to Pen America, there were 22,810 instances of banned books in U.S. public schools from 2021 to 2025. Books have also been removed from libraries, museum shops, and even the United States Defense Department schools. The majority of titles that have been targeted contain themes about race, gender, or sexuality -- in effect erasing or decreasing access to important stories, identities, experiences, and history. We must fight this censorship! To help us all take action and make a difference, Just Us Books has created the Banned Books Pledge.

I Pledge To:

1. Read more banned children's books.

2. Introduce 5-10 different banned children's books to educators, librarians, bookstore managers and parents-anyone who has influence and/or power to help increase the number of these books within our body of children's literature. 

3. Donate banned children's books to youth organizations, literacy programs and youth community groups. 

4. Prioritize buying these books from independent publishers, independent bookstores and vendors. 

5. Support and get involved with organizations like the Banned Books Week Coalition, Authors Against Book Bans, The Kids' Right to Read Project and other efforts to fight censorship in kidlit. 

6. When visiting a bookstore or library, encourage managers to include more banned children's books. Take the initiative to purchase or borrow from the library at least one banned book to show my commitment to supporting these books. 

7. Encourage educators and administrators to include banned books among their classroom resources. 

8. Encourage book reviewers and bloggers to include banned books among the titles they spotlight. 

9. Publicly celebrate banned books, including sharing them on social media, book review sites and through personal recommendations.

10. Encourage others to take this pledge.

RESOURCES
PEN America Banned in the USA. The Normalization of Book Banning
AuthorsAgainstBookBans

BANNED BOOK LISTS

Jane Addams Peace Association
BooksandAuthors Freely We Read: Picture Books Middle Grade Books Young Adult

PEN America

HuffPo

Good Trouble

One of the most popular questions we get at speaking events, after “how do I get my book published” is: “what can I do to better support Just Us Books and diverse children’s books in general?”

We appreciate the question. It signals that people know they can help drive the change they want to see. At the 2024 Children’s Institute in New Orleans, I spoke to a group of people who are in a unique position to ensure these books are available: booksellers. But the spirit of my message applies to us all, and I’d like to share a few lines with you:

“I encourage all of you to be involved in helping to make sure books that can enrich, inform, uplift, inspire, sometimes rescue, and yes, entertain our youth in this too often challenging and difficult world are available to them."

It takes all of us: booksellers, parents, extended family members, educators, librarians, program directors, community members. Buy the books, borrow them from your library, ask for them at bookstores, share them with young people, push for them to be considered for school and summer reading lists, share them on social media and talk about them in person. We must all play a more active and intentional role in supporting diverse books and ensuring they are accessible.

Kudos to the American Booksellers Association for playing their part in this work. They made a concerted effort to ensure the Children’s Institute was more inclusive and that more BIPOC publishers and booksellers had platforms to be seen and heard, such as the Spotlight on Black Publishing panel, where Cheryl spoke. This year’s workshops and panels also tackled important issues we’re facing, including book banning, which has removed thousands of books — many by BIPOC and LGBTQ creators — from library shelves and school curricula.

During my talk at the Rep Picks Luncheon, I spoke about book banning and how we can fight back, quoting the great John Lewis’ call to make “good trouble.” A number of publishers and booksellers thanked me for my words. What’s clear is this work is about more than sales and profitability, although both are important to sustain any business. It’s about ensuring our children are represented and affirmed in the books they read and that they can see themselves in history, the present, and the future. I’m glad to see more of us are in for the good fight and I hope even more join.

Wade Hudson
CEO and Co-Founder
Just Us Books

Read more about the 2024 Children’s Institute in Publishers Weekly.