Over the past year, 86 school districts in 26 states have enacted book bans, creating an alarming domino effect of censorship nationwide. More than 1,000 titles, most of which tell the stories of LGBTQ+ people and people of color, have been barred from classrooms. But Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), one of the country’s largest libraries, is standing up for the right to read.

Books Unbanned, BPL’s new teen-led initiative, allows every young person in the United States between the ages of 13 and 21 to apply for a free library card. It will be active for one year and provides unbounded access to all ebooks and audiobooks available at BPL.

“Intellectual freedom should be given to everyone,” Raisa Islam, a 16-year-old member of the Brooklyn Public Library Council, told Seventeen. “It should be the same as the right to speak.”

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“When we were young children, the stories that we are given are so sugar-coated, and as we’re growing up, the real world is like a smack to the face because we’re not prepared for it,” she continued. “The books that do prepare for it, they’re taken away from [students]. They are banned.”

Since the campaign’s launch, about 3,000 teens have applied for a card via a letter to BPL’s email address, BooksUnbanned@bklynlibrary.org, or a DM to their teen-run Instagram account, @bklynfuture.

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“Access to information is the great promise upon which public libraries were founded,” Linda E. Johnson, President and CEO of Brooklyn Public Library, said in a statement. “We cannot sit idly by while books rejected by a few are removed from the library shelves for all.”

Books Unbanned also waives holds and wait times on a collection of books that are repeatedly challenged, including The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, Tomboy by Liz Prince, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.

Book censorship has unfortunately long persisted in the United States. Some historians believe that it dates back to the late 19th century, according to Literary Hub, when Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was largely banned throughout the south preceding the Civil War. Since then, titles such as 1984 by George Orwell and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood have been wiped from reading lists.

Today, books including Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, a book inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement, and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir, an autobiography about the author’s nonbinary identity and coming out, have been removed from classroom or library bookshelves. PEN America, a nonprofit organization that defends the right to free expression, reported that between July 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, 1,586 books were banned.

“I really love The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson,” Raisa shared. “Those are heavily challenged books throughout the nation because The Handmaid’s Tale talks about a very realistic dystopia that could happen in the future, and Speak, on the other hand, talks about sexual abuse and trauma. When I learned that those books were being challenged, it really upset me. It’s strange to have a system to take away something that you love or care for.”

“It made me realize that most parents want to protect their children — and that’s OK — but it’s not OK to stop someone from learning,” she continued. “Our age group goes through traumatic experiences, and having books [that address these experiences] is like having a support system. It’s something you can go back to, even when no one knows about your situation. Even if you feel all alone, you have that book to read, to know that someone else is out there.”
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