A joint effort between the American Library Association (ALA) and the Banned Books Week Coalition, Banned Books Week will be held October 5 – 11, 2025. The theme for 2025 is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” 

According to Barbara Stripling, Banned Books Week Coalition Chair, “Banned Books Week prompts us all to stand up and defend our First Amendment right to read freely. Censorship is never the path to truth. All of our lives are enriched when our libraries and schools provide the books that allow us to see ourselves, understand others, and discover the world.”

Current efforts to ban books and information held in schools, libraries, archives, and bookstores are a truth uncomfortably close to fiction, such as the depiction of extreme censorship by an oppressive regime in George Orwell’s cautionary tale 1984. Banned Books Week 2025 reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, censorship has no place in contemporary society, and we must defend our rights.

Banned Books Week launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of book challenges in libraries, schools, and bookstores. And, the fight goes on. ALA recently released the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024 list and the State of America’s Libraries Report. The majority of book censorship attempts that ALA tracked in 2024 come from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members, and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries.  

Additionally, PEN America recorded the highest instances of book censorship in schools and the highest number of unique titles banned during the 2023-2024 school year (more than 4,000 unique titles were removed in over 10,000 instances of book bans). PEN America also tracked the influence of pressure groups, finding that they have undertaken efforts to remove materials in nearly every state.

Want to learn more? A variety of free downloads, resources, and materials to support Banned Books Week activities can be found at bannedbooksweek.org.

About the Banned Books Week Coalition

The Banned Books Week Coalition is an international alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The Coalition seeks to engage various communities and inspire participation in Banned Books Week through education, advocacy, and the creation of programming about the problem of book censorship.

The coalition includes American Booksellers for Free Expression, American Library Association, Amnesty International USA, Association of University Presses, Banned Books Week Sweden, Children’s Book Council, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Freedom to Read Foundation, Little Free Library, National Book Foundation, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America, People for the American Way Foundation, PFLAG National. Contributors include American Society of Journalists and Authors, Authors Guild, Index on Censorship, GLAAD, and Project Censored. Banned Books Week receives generous support from Penguin Random House.

About Success Won’t Wait

Founded in 2002, Success Won’t Wait is a not-for-profit literacy organization based in Wilmington, Delaware. To learn more about Success Won’t Wait’s literacy projects, how to donate used children’s books in Delaware, volunteer your time, or host a Used Book Drive please click on the About Us tab above.

And, if your program, school or center needs assistance with books, please Contact Us to learn more.

Read now, because success won’t wait!