We went into last night’s event, “Books are for Reading, not Banning,” knowing that censorship has risen in recent years and that we feel, often smugly, lucky to live in Massachusetts. We knew that the majority of targeted books (and their authors) have LGBTQ+ themes; the rest are primarily about race. What we discovered is that there is a lot we didn't know, and other realities we need to be reminded of.

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.