Banned Books Week Starts October 4. Libraries Are Still Punk.
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Banned Books Week runs October 4–10 this year. It's a week where libraries, bookstores, and a lot of ordinary readers make a point of displaying the books somebody tried to remove.
We think about this one a lot, so let's talk about it a week early — while there's still time to do something.
What the week is actually for
Banned Books Week has been running since 1982. The premise is simple: books get challenged in schools and public libraries constantly, most of those challenges happen quietly at the district level, and the single most effective response is visibility. Put the book on a table by the door. Say its name out loud.
The American Library Association tracks challenges every year and publishes the list. It is not a short list. What's notable is how consistent the targets are — the books most frequently challenged are overwhelmingly by or about Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people. That pattern is the story.
The other thing worth knowing is who actually does the challenging. It's rarely a groundswell of concerned parents. Reporting on this has repeatedly found that a very small number of people file a very large share of the challenges, often using pre-circulated lists of titles they haven't read. A handful of people can pull dozens of books off a shelf in a district serving thousands of kids.
Why librarians take it personally
Because they're the ones in the room. A school librarian who declines to pull a book is putting their job at risk in a lot of districts right now. Some have faced criminal referrals. This is not an abstract fight for them, and they are, generally speaking, holding the line anyway on a public salary.
Libraries are one of the last institutions built on the assumption that you deserve access to information without having to prove you can afford it or justify why you want it. That's a genuinely radical operating principle and it's been sitting there in every small town in America the whole time, staffed by people wearing cardigans.
We wrote a whole manifesto about this and we stand by every word.
Things to actually do that week
Wearing a shirt is not activism. Here's what moves the needle:
Read a challenged book. The ALA publishes the annual top ten. Pick one, get it from your library, and check it out — circulation numbers are the argument librarians use when they defend keeping a book.
Go to a school board meeting. This is where challenges are decided and the rooms are usually close to empty. Showing up is disproportionately effective for how boring it is.
Say something nice to a librarian. Low effort, weirdly high impact. They're having a rough decade.
Buy the book from an indie bookstore. Many run Banned Books Week displays and some will hand you a free challenged title if you ask.
And yes, we make the shirt
If you want to wear something about it — to the library, to the board meeting, to the bookstore — the Libraries are Punk Unisex Tee is the one. There's a Women's Tee, a Unisex Hoodie, a Women's Crop Hoodie, and a Youth Tee — the youth size is the one we're proudest of, because kids are who this fight is nominally about and they rarely get asked.
The Reading is Queer Unisex Tee speaks directly to which books keep ending up on the lists. The Protect Queer Kids Unisex Tee is the plainer version of the same sentence.
The For Democracy Unisex Tee and Hoodie, and the Raising the Revolution Unisex Tee and Women's Tee, live in the Statement Collection alongside them.
And for the household that's raising readers on purpose: the Bookworm Youth Tee, the I Already Know That Youth Tee, and the ICFR Baby Onesie — I Came From Readers, which is the whole point.
Order by the end of September
Everything prints to order and ships in about 3–7 days, so if you want something in hand for the week of October 4th, this weekend is the moment. After that it's a coin flip.
Browse the Book Lover Collection and the Statement Collection.
Then go get a library card. Seriously, it's free, and using it is the entire argument.