“When I see a book banned, I see the rejection of our ancestors’ past, the silencing of those telling our story in the present, and the eradication of our youths’ future--a future that we refuse to let them be denied."
George M. Johnson
author of All Boys Aren’t Blue
"I read banned books because no individual, no group, no organization has the right to impose their particular sense of morality on others. No individual, no group, no organization has the right to restrict the choice to open a book. Any book."
Nora Roberts
author of Interitance
"I write banned books because I personally know the value and worth of reading the kind of stories that have been banned and censored in the past. I seek to challenge the status quo through storytelling, to provide young readers a chance to see themselves and their peers in fiction, and to create art that is invigorating, thought-provoking, and even uncomfortable. That’s where growth is, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without books that did those very things to me."
Mark Oshiro
author of Each of Us a Desert
“Banned books are important because they are a safe space for hard conversations. When books are banned these conversations don't stop, they will simply move to a less safe space.”
Lily Williams
author of Go with the Flow
"My favorite banned book is Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson because stories about misogynoir and rape culture need to be uplifted, not banished away from readers who need them the most."
Jas Hammonds
author of We Deserve Monuments
“If we ban every book that offends some parent, our libraries will be left with nothing but a dictionary and a copy of Goodnight Moon.”
Katherine Applegate
author of Wishtree
“People often say “Good for you!” when they hear that one (or several) of my books have been banned. I always reply: No. Not good for me. Shame on them, those fearmongers, those haters of liberty, those who seek to ban books.”
Elana K. Arnold
author of Starla Jean
"Nothing liberates more than recognizing yourself, your history, your likeness honored in a book; every effort to malign and erase certain people is an assault on our kids themselves, which must be fought with every ounce of determination and love we possess."
Charlotte Sullivan Wild
author of Love, Violet
“When I see a book banned it breaks my heart because every child should have a chance to read books that reflect or expand their experience of the world!”
Dashka Slater
author of The 57 Bus
The 57 Bus : A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives
by Dashka Slater
It Feels Good to Be Yourself : A Book About Gender Identity
by Theresa Thorn, Noah Grigni (Illustrated by)
Woke : A Young Poet's Call to Justice
by Mahogany L. Browne, Elizabeth Acevedo, Olivia Gatwood, Theodore Taylor, III (Illustrated by), Jason Reynolds (Contributions by)
Fry Bread : A Native American Family Story
by Kevin Noble Maillard, Juana Martinez-Neal (Illustrated by)
Cancer Ward : A Novel
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nicholas Bethell (Translated by), David Burg (Translated by)
Nickel and Dimed (20th Anniversary Edition) : On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
What Goes Around : Two Books In One: Cracked Up to Be & Some Girls Are
by Courtney Summers
The Hunting Accident : A True Story of Crime and Poetry
by David L. Carlson, Landis Blair (Illustrated by)
Jasmine Toguchi, Flamingo Keeper
by Debbi Michiko Florence, Elizabet Vukovic (Illustrated by)
Sloppy Firsts : A Jessica Darling Novel
by Megan McCafferty, Rebecca Serle (Introduction by)
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy : Racism, Injustice, and How You Can Be a Changemaker
by Emmanuel Acho
