Read ’Em and Weep
Dear Leading Ladies,
After last week’s letter about our 2025 Art as Activism contest inviting high school students to create posters expressing the importance of fighting book bannings and censorship in schools and libraries, and our plans for a forum on the same subject at the Cabot Theater in Beverly on March 26, we started thinking about what we might all do in our daily lives to spread awareness about this issue, increase knowledge, and make some tangible effect.
One of our young graphic designers, who does fabulous work for Leading Ladies, shared her personal activism with us. When she is at a tag sale or in a thrift store, she combs the aisles for frequently banned books and scoops them up. Then she deposits them in the neighborhood little book libraries — the kind that people have curbside in front of their homes for people to take or deposit books for sharing. What a brilliant idea!
Riffing on her idea, we thought it might be great to keep a list in your phone of the most commonly banned books as reference when you are somewhere secondhand books are for sale. Bookmark that list here, or download this to your phone’s photo library.
ImagineGolf / Getty Images
Besides donating your finds to little neighborhood libraries, consider donating them to local school libraries and support programs. But first, take time to look at the themes in the books and find the best destination for different titles. As we know, banned books often “grapple with race and racism or explore gender identity and sexuality or depict violence,” according to a PEN report. Consequently, afternoon programs for teens could be a perfect landing spot for some banned books, particularly those who serve LGBTQ+ teens, since so many of the banned books have themes around sexual orientation. Whether shelters would welcome banned books on themes of abuse may vary from program to program. It’s always best to check that your gift is welcome before making a donation.
Finding the right place to donate banned books should not be difficult. Here are a few suggestions of places to start.
North Shore Alliance of GLBTQ Youth
NAGLY
Salem, MA
978.224.2102
Manchester MA
978.808.5451
North Shore Recovery High School
Beverly, MA
978.232.9755
One more idea. Package up a short stack of your favorite banned books — think Toni Morrison, Jodi Picoult, Alice Walker, for example — and give them as holiday gifts with a note including a fact about book bans in the USA.
iStock
As for becoming more enlightened about the issue of book bans, the American Library Association, PEN, and Harvard’s Gutman Library are all great sources. We found it fascinating that the Gutman Library claims the first book banning in our country came in 1637 in our own dear commonwealth when “Thomas Morton published his New English Canaan which was subsequently banned by the Puritan government as it was considered a harsh and heretical critique of Puritan customs and power structures.”
These days, banned books in Massachusetts are a rarity, with only one reported in the past year in a single school district. Even without bans, however, people on the margins often don’t see themselves reflected in what they see and hear. Making these books available to them can help.
Another important issue, the competing movements of promoting and preventing school curricula that teach the unvarnished truth about slavery and the attempted extermination of Native Americans, is aligned – and yet distinct – from book bans. We need to keep our eye on that ball during the upcoming months and years, too, paying attention to what is happening in our local school committee meetings and who is making decisions about high school history curriculum. Yes, even in Massachusetts.
We are going to take a couple of weeks off from writing our newsletter to celebrate the holidays with friends and family. We wish you all peace and joy, a happy Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year! See you in 2025!
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team