Reading is one of our greatest freedoms. It’s the best way to learn about someone’s hardships, about challenges you might not face but that others encounter everyday. It’s a way to see the world through someone else’s perspective – and it’s a freedom that is actively under attack.
Since 2000, book challenges have seen a massive surge, especially post-2020. From 2021 on, PEN America has documented almost 23,000 cases of book bans in U.S. public schools. Stories ranging from classic literature to children’s picture books have been removed from shelves in 45 states and 451 public school districts.
“I think it reflects a lot of the fears that people have about what’s allowed to be said again, whose stories are allowed to be told. I think it is a tremendous waste of time and energy. The amount of time that our librarians have to spend now addressing book challenges or defending our book selections is so sad and frightening to me, considering they should be spending their time teaching our students information literacy, helping connect them to the books that they love.” Said Rebekah Cummings, a librarian at the Marriott library, Chair of the Utah State Library Board, and former President of the Utah Library Association.
Books are challenged not because they are dangerous, but because they’re uncomfortable. Stories that address racism, gender, sexuality, or historical injustice force readers to confront realities that are easier to hide or ignore. The parents and lawmakers who want to ban these books aren’t doing it out of protection, they’re doing it out of fear. Fear of understanding, of having uncomfortable conversations, and through that fear they’re attempting to erase these perspectives entirely.
Book banning is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history, people in power have restricted access to literature to maintain control—Nazi book burnings, McCarthy-era blacklists, suppression of enslaved people’s literacy. Today’s bans may look different, but they are driven by the same fear that ideas encourage critical thought. The most gruesome and awful moments of history are actively being repeated, and that idea alone should be enough to scare people into action.
Supporters of these book bans often claim they are protecting children, but sheltering us from reality can hardly be seen as protection. Reading doesn’t indoctrinate, it educates. Exposure to difficult topics through literature, especially for children and teens, is immensely important as it allows readers to explore these topics safely, thoughtfully, and with a newfound sense of empathy. Avoiding hard topics doesn’t erase them.
Rebekah Cummings shed more light on this topic, saying “I don’t think there is any kid who is looking for pornography at their school library. If they want to get it, they can get it on the internet. First of all, you always have the right to limit your own child’s reading. We do not allow one person in our community to dictate what everybody else gets to read. And that’s so important, because libraries are for everyone, and so there might be books in the school library that I wouldn’t want my kids to read, but what I’d do if they were to pick up that book is I talk to them about it. I look at that book as data of what they’re interested in. I read alongside them. I don’t act out of fear and just snatch it away from them and say this book isn’t for you. I get curious instead of afraid.”
There’s a striking pattern that emerges when we examine which books are being challenged. The majority feature LGBTQ+ characters, people of color, inequality, or discuss trauma such as sexual assault or abuse. By targeting these stories, censorship disproportionately silences voices that are already underrepresented, reinforcing the very marginalization these books are working to expose.
For students, banned books are not some abstract political symbols, they’re a way to understand ourselves. All it takes is a single story, a character, a relationship, a family dynamic, an injustice the protagonist is facing, and a young reader will finally see themselves represented in a book. People seriously underestimate the power of representation. Being able to read a novel or watch a movie or tv show with a character who looks or lives like you can be a complete saving grace, especially for kids and teens. When those books get removed, it sends a quiet but powerful message: your experience is too controversial to be acknowledged, your story is inappropriate, and it’s not worth telling.
“When you read a book by a person who’s writing about a life or a lifestyle that’s different from yours, it has the potential to increase your empathy for that person and for that way of life, for that identity, that community. And so when we want to ban those books, we are saying to our children, we don’t want you to empathize with those people, or with those lifestyles or with those ways of being, and so to reclaim those books, to say, actually, we can increase our capacity for empathy through reading is really, really valuable.” Said Dr. Chappell, who works in the English department here at Judge.
Every reader deserves to see themselves in a book. Students live in the world just as much as anyone else does. We have opinions, we have questions, we have identities. We face challenges and discrimination. A book that’s uncomfortable to you could be completely life-changing for someone else. Not every reader should read every book, but banning them outright is a complete breach of freedom. The freedom to read is inseparable from the freedom to think. When access to ideas is restricted, critical thinking suffers, and democracy weakens. A society that limits stories limits its citizens’ ability to question, to understand, and to hold the people in power accountable.
Dr. Chappell added “To do something that somebody else has decided is against the rules…we think that teenagers are rebellious, but at the same time, they’re also big rule followers. And so to be able to say, okay, even though you told me that you banned this book, I’m going to read it, and I’m going to exercise my freedom as a citizen to do something that I think is right, even if you think it’s wrong.”
If we allow books to be removed in the name of comfort, we risk raising a generation taught that difficult truths are better hidden than understood, that difficult histories and perspectives are better left unheard. The question is not whether books make us uncomfortable—but whether we are willing to lose the freedom to learn from them. Stop banning the books that explain the lives we’re already living.
