Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights

Featuring 15 authors and illustrators, including Nikki Grimes, Kyle Lukoff, and Traci Sorell, this necessary anthology—comprising fiction, memoir, poetry, comics, essays, and more—equips teens with resources to rally against book bans and fight for the freedom to read. Stories told through varying lenses recount such personal experiences as, in “O-Town Blues,” Brendan Kiely’s standing against his mother as a teenager protesting book bans, and, in “Our Whole Radical Anatomy,” Kelly Jensen’s receiving hate mail, which she describes as “having your life’s work reduced to a count of profanities.” Authentic and raw prose and poetry render an educational safe space for readers “who persist when cowards try to erase stories and communities from libraries”; echo the resilience and determination it takes for books and people to tackle difficult topics surrounding misogyny, rape culture, and homophobia; and assert that bannings eliminate “declarations of existence” and the “framework for adulthood.” Concluding with ample resources such as extensive recommended book lists and examples of what readers can do to support the ongoing fight against book bans, this anthology acts as a call to action and a form of protest, using the power of words to inspire hope and unity. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)