public libraries in the usa offering free digital library cards to people not in their areas (as of october 2023):

brooklyn (13-21yo us residents)

seattle (13-26yo us residents)

boston (13-26yo us residents, EDIT: just commonly banned books)

los angeles (13-18yo california residents)

san diego (12-26yo us residents, not the whole collection just commonly banned books)

these books unbanned cards (unless otherwise stated) get you access to each library's complete libby/cloud library collection, no hoopla/kanopy/physical copies included.

ebook collections are expensive to maintain (many american libraries have annual fees for non-residents because of this) but because of an uptick in book banning (particularly brutal in mississippi last summer) larger libraries have opened their doors more, which is very kind of them!

i've used my seattle card for the last several months and their libby collection has about three times the books that my local library does, which is wonderful for accessing more niche titles or skipping a waiting list. would love to hear of similar ebook initiatives internationally!

i use library extension (firefox/chrome/edge compatible) to check all my collections (+ the internet archive) at once, works for several different countries highly recommend it.

spotify seems to be offering 15hrs/month of audiobook listening to premium subscribers and while that does seem useful if you're already paying and are after a new release with a long library waitlist, libraries are better for everything else.

Spooky season is upon us! To celebrate I put together a few designs promoting books and libraries. If you like them, feel free to use them! These are four of my poster designs! Again, these posters are absolutely free for you to print and use!

Schools and public libraries are under attack and need your support. They are facing quiet defunding, book bans, and acts of hate. Please consider contacting your local representative to ask that these institutions remain funded and protected, and show your support by stopping by your local library.

For additional Halloween freebies celebrating libraries and reading, click the link here!

If you would like to see more of my library/activism designs or would like to get these designs on a T-shirt, book bag, or sticker, you can visit my shop here.

Here's an old comic from I WILL JUDGE YOU BY YOUR BOOKSHELF, unfortunately now more relevant than ever. #BannedBooksWeek

For Banned Books Week, we offer you this 81-year-old image from our collections.

No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny.

A print of this poster currently hangs in the hallway between our reading room and classroom, along with several other posters about libraries, books, and reading, dating from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Books are weapons in the war of ideas [graphic] / S. Broder. RARE FLAT D743.25 .B75 1942

It's Banned Books Week!

While this isn't really a week to celebrate because censorship and the suppression of diverse voices is never okay, this is a week to lift up the work of educators, librarians, authors, book publishers, anyone who has a hand in making sure everyone's voice is represented in the books we love. The past few years have seen an increase in school boards across the country banning books in classrooms and libraries. The most egregious, to me, has been the removal of classroom sets of books in Florida. The ALA released early data on the number of challenged books for 2023 so far and its heartbreaking. The data reveals that, "Between January 1 and August 31, 2023, OIF reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles - a 20% increase from the same reporting period in 2022, which saw the highest number of book challenges since ALA began compiling the data more than 20 years ago. The vast majority of challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community." (https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/book-ban-data) I don't know about you but this makes me want to fight even harder.

So, what can you do? The ALA provides an cool list of ways you can get involved not just this week but all year round such as volunteer at a library, speak out at a school board meeting, join organizations such as Unite Against Book Bans, purchase and share banned books, and even attend some of the events this week. Check out this page (Banned Books - Get Involved) for more detailed information about how you can help. 

Starting today the ALA is hosting a few events that you can gain insight and inspiration. I'm looking forward to Banned Books Week Honorary Chair LeVar Burton's talk tonight at 8pm EST (5pm for you Cali folk like me) and a roundtable discussion titled "A Seat at the Table: Youth Advocates on Fighting Books Bans" by students leaders doing the hard work on Thursday at 8pm EST/5pm PST. Click on this page (Banned Books - Events) to get more information. 

Lastly, Saturday, October 7th is Let Freedom Read Day where the ALA is asking us all to commit to doing at least one thing to help fight against censorship and support those on the front line. On their page (Let Freedom Read) is a list of actions that you could do on Sunday (or any day really), but for me, personally, please send love to a teacher or librarian because we could really use the support. Just saying "I'm there for you" or maybe donating a book to a teacher's personal classroom library would go far in the fight against censorship.  If there is any time to give back to those who promote literacy and representation for all, this is the week to do it. 

Harvey is supporting Pride and Less Prejudice with a personalized video for auction!

Today’s comic being on point

“I felt like I was looking into the future ... and the future looked really messed up.” —from Black Hole

This banned books week, dare to read Charles Burns's "masterwork" (The New York Times) graphic novel—a hypnotically beautiful and horrifying story of a strange plague devastating the lives of teenagers in mid-1970s suburban Seattle.

Happy Banned Books week! 2022 had so many book challenges that the ALA had to do a top 13, so maybe call your library and tell them how much you love being able to access books on controversial topics! The book banners are a vocal minority, we can drown them out!

1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

2. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

4. Flamer by Mike Curato

5a. Looking for Alaska by John Green

5b. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

10a. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

10b. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

10c. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

10d. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

More info: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Which U.S. states ban the most books?

In the fall semester of 2022, there were 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles. Texas is the state with the most book bans by far. It’s followed by Florida and Missouri.

(via Which U.S. states ban the most books? (infographic))

I was a little underwhelmed by the ALA's Banned Books Week designs this year, so I made my own. If you like them, feel free to use them! Two poster designs and two bookmark designs! Again, these posters and bookmarks are absolutely free for you to print and use! Fight censorship, stand with the banned!

If you would like to see additional library/activism designs or would like to get these designs on a T-shirt, book bag, or sticker, you can visit my shop here.

Some months ago I bought the most banned book in the USA 2022 as a protest and it was ONE OF THE BEST DESICION OF MY LIFE! I found myself in this book in so many ways that it helped me understand myself better. At the same time I found enough differences to my own experiences that I started to draw and write something like a personal response (one that I will never publish but that I hold dear to my heart). There were pages in this book that made me want to gift it to anyone who didn't understand my gender or sexuality.

Book banning does nothing but harm. It keeps people from understanding themselves, or history, or others... And it is not lost to anyone, that this is a war on queer people and people of colour specifically.

Banned Books Week 2023

It’s that time of year again, when we honor and focus on the books out there that have been banned. And boy, it seems the last few years that book banning has been on the rise. You know if you don’t like a book and you don’t agree with it, no one is forcing you to read it. I’ll even go as far as understanding parents taking books out of their own kid’s hands. My objection is when parents take books out of some other kid’s or adult’s hand. Growing up, if someone had taken “The Diary of Anne Frank” off of my library’s shelf, I would have been lost.

This year I’m focusing on… “Anne of Green Gables,” by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Yes, you read that right, our dear old unromantic Anne Shirley was banned!

Description:

Eleven-year-old Anne Shirley has never known a real home. Since her parents’ deaths, she’s bounced around to foster homes and orphanages. When she is sent by mistake to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she wants to stay forever. But Anne is not the sturdy boy Matthew and Marilla were expecting.   She’s a mischievous, talkative redheaded girl with a fierce temper, who tumbles into one scrape after another. Anne is not like anybody else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special, a girl with an enormous imagination. All she’s ever wanted is to belong somewhere. And the longer she stays at Green Gables, the harder it is for anyone to imagine life without her.

Author:

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, in 1874. Educated at Prince Edward College, Charlottetown, and Dalhousie University, she embarked on a career in teaching. From 1898 until 1911 she took care of her maternal grandmother in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, and during this time wrote many poems and stories for Canadian and American magazines. Montgomery’s first novel, Anne of Green Gables, met with immediate critical and popular acclaim, and its success, both national and international, led to seven sequels. Maud Montgomery also wrote the popular Emily of New Moon in 1923 followed by two sequels, and Pat of Silver Bush in 1933 with its sequel. L. M. Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942, but it is her early years of lush, green Prince Edward Island that live on in the delightful adventures of the impetuous redhead, the stories Mark Twain called “the sweetest creation of child life yet written.”

Why It was Banned:

You’re probably asking yourself, who on earth would ban something as adorable, and funny, and innocent as “Anne of Green Gables?” (Who on earth bans any book?) Well, let��s find out!

After “Anne of Green Gables,” was published in 1908, it wasn’t long before it was translated into other languages, that way others could fall in love with Anne Shirley. In 1912, it was translated to Polish and it found a captive audience amongst the Polish people. Soon, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s other works were translated, and she grew very popular there. Anne’s individuality was endearing. In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Polish soldiers were issued copies of Montgomery’s novels to take to the frontlines, as a means to raise the moral. When the Nazis occupied the country, “Anne of Green Gables” and Montgomery’s other works were banned, but that didn’t stop the Polish people. Copies were sold on the black market; resistance members carried them. Anne Shirley had become a beacon of hope. The war in Poland ended in 1945 and I’m sure the Polish people were looking forward to being free…unfortunately, they had been liberated by the Soviets and a Communistic government was put into place. Similarly, because Montgomery’s works were so beloved and “Anne’s resistance to authority” was a threat, the Soviets viewed it as “subversive” and banned “Anne of Green Gables” in 1953 to 1956.

My Thoughts:

I first read “Anne of Green Gables” when I was thirteen or fourteen. My family and I were visiting family up north and we stopped by this huge warehouse that sold old, used books for cheap. I stumbled across “Anne of Green Gables” and from the title I was intrigued, and it was one of the ones we bought. I devoured it and soon fell in love with odd, weird, red-haired girl. She turns her hair green, hits a boy with a slate, gets her friend drunk – what’s not to like? I had no idea it was Classic Lit – to me Anne Shirley felt modern and realistic. I went on to read the rest of the series, and re-read them off and on over the years. Then, I found the miniseries! Imagine my surprise when I learned it was a banned book.  

So, you see, the Nazis and the Communists banned and censored books…Those who are on the side of good don’t ban and censor books. And I’ll leave it at that.

Banned Books Week ACTION Checklist

Board Watcher Bingo

Have you heard of Court Watchers? The central idea of that project is that "bad things happen in empty courtrooms," (which, let's be real, bad things happen in all courtrooms).

Because bad things also happen at unattended public library Board of Trustee meetings, we’re encouraging you to become Board Watchers for your local public library system. For The People would especially like to encourage those of you who have indicated that you're interested in being seated on your local public library boards to take up this activity. Our spin on the Court Watchers idea also includes bingo, because we want you to have fun! The Board Watcher Bingo squares feature common public library board of trustee responsibilities, activities, or topics.

Here's how to become a Board Watcher:

Find out when your local public library's next board meeting is (in person or remote).

Put it on your calendar (pro board watcher move: put a recurring item on your calendar based on when these meetings usually occur!).

Identify and review any public agendas or perhaps take a look at the "minutes" from previous meetings.

Attend the board meeting and play Board Watcher Bingo while you attend (download as image or download as pdf).

Take notes while you play (Did you cross off the POLICIES square? What types of policies were discussed? Cross off the ACCESS square? What type of access was covered? Was it access to technology, to facilities, to collections, or something else?)

Extra credit task #1 (worth one square of your choice): Read the public library trustee handbook for your state, or read a general public library trustee handbook if there isn't a dedicated one for your state. Huge thanks to FTP volunteer Lauren for the research help pulling these together: Library Trustee Handbook Collection.

Extra credit task #2 (worth TWO squares of your choice, wow!): Sign up to make a public comment and speak at a public library board meeting. Here's a great set of talking points that you can check out for inspiration. If you don’t have a current issue or problem that you want to address, and you’re not sure what to talk about, find something you think your library is doing well or recount a recent positive experience you had as a library user! Most libraries only hear from patrons with problems (which is entirely legitimate), so adding something positive to the mix can go a long way and shows that there is community support for what you love about your local public library.

It may take multiple board meetings or a meeting plus an extra credit item or two before you’re able to complete a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line through your bingo card and that’s okay!

The first 25 people to complete their bingo card can fill out this form to receive a small gift from us (Library Defenders Stickers, For The People buttons, and/or postcards).