A Free Printable Bookmark About Book Censorship
Print these free bookmarks to help engage your friends, family, and community in the fight against book bans.
I’ve been on a week and a half of time off from my full-time job. The first part of it was spent at the Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I helped in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned vendor booth. It was a great show, and it was a delight to meet so many outstanding librarians from around the country. I also re-”met” a former colleague who currently works at a library in Illinois that has been under immense challenges from its far-right board for several years.
The second part of my time off has been for relaxing. In theory, at least. I used this week to catch up on some creative projects I’ve been wanting to think about and I’ve used it to draft some upcoming talks I’ll be giving through the month of October.
I also made something for my local independent bookstore that I thought worth sharing with readers here to use wherever and however they’d like.
Anyone who has been paying attention to book censorship knows that Banned Books Week is coming up, October 5-11. I deeply dislike Banned Books Week for loads of reasons, and the more time I spend covering book censorship in my work life and not work life as an author who has had her books banned across the nation and globe, the more I dislike it. Even five years deep into an unbelievable rise in attacks on our First Amendment Rights, this week still manages to be primarily about marketing and about consumerism. We should absolutely champion organizations doing the work to protect books, just as we should absolutely champion purchasing books by authors who’ve seen censorship. But this cannot and should not be the thrust of the week.
The week should focus not only on where and how institutions uphold citizens’ First Amendment Rights but also encourage and empower citizens to stand up for those rights all year long. So much energy and money is poured into a single week. If it were spread out over 52, we’d see fewer people still convinced that book bans aren’t happening in “good” “blue” states like Massachusetts or California. We’d see fewer people denigrating “bad” “red” states like Florida or Texas or South Carolina or Alabama, where some of the most fervent advocates of the freedom to read are doing incredible, important work in ways that don’t come close to the work being done in those “good” states.
A few years ago, I brought the issue up about how bookstores–especially big chain ones–really amp up their promotion of “banned books” during this week. Too often–and yes, even still–the same tired books show up on these displays. You’ve got your 1984, your Brave New World, your Catcher in the Rye, and your hundreds of other books primarily by straight white men who aren’t actually hurting from book bans right now. Independent bookstores have done a little better, but even still, many simply make displays to sell the books. There’s no call to action about what the week means and encourages. There’s simply the sale.
My (awesome) independent bookstore reached out to me after reading that piece. We have an excellent relationship, and they wanted to know what they could do to better encourage our community to stay on top of what’s going on and be actively involved in pushing back against censorship. We met and built upon something they were already doing: making Banned Books Week about giving banned books back to schools in the community.
This year, I asked if they’d be interested in something else. They already have programming planned around the week to continue raising awareness of what’s really happening, so I thought: what would be an easy way to get some important information across without having to do anything particularly time- or effort- consuming.
The answer was a straightforward and straight-to-the-point bookmark outlining what the average person can do in their own town to protect the right to read.
These bookmarks aren’t meant to be sexy. They’re intended to make acting on behalf of intellectual freedom easy and practical to the average person. These are bookmarks you can print out on whatever paper you’d like and slip inside a bookmark holder at an institution where you might work or that you can hand out wherever it may be appropriate. Making a banned books display in your classroom or library? Print some of these out, too.
There’s no authorship on the bookmarks and that’s intentional–Literary Activism gets noted at the bottom for the practical purpose of keeping tabs on the news in book censorship, but otherwise, the point here is to simply spread the word and spread it far. This isn’t about marketing or ties to a specific institution or organization. It’s about meeting the average reader right where they are.
You won’t want to print from the above image. It won’t come out at the right dimensions. Instead, you can download the file from Google Drive.
No need to credit these if used as-is, and if you want to make your own design for these with the same language, feel free to do that as well.
I made a second design, too, pictured above. It’s a little smaller but it might be right for your use. This one is also available via Google Drive.
If you’d like some more thoughtful reading on Banned Books Week and/or inspiration for where or how you can reframe what the week is about, I’ve got you:
I wrote a post in 2022 about making effective Banned Books Week displays
Author Maggie Tokuda-Hall talks about ushering in a new era for Banned Books Week
Librarian Lila Denning talks about how to navigate book displays when you have to be careful about them–and it’s not about being careful with the books but about the time and effort spent in the verbiage used in signage
Several years ago, Julie Jurgens wrote about why she dislikes Banned Books Week and it’s still relevant today.
I want to end this short newsletter with a link to a podcast I had the privilege of being a guest on this week. I sat down with Jared Holt, one of the hosts of the show Posting Through It, to talk about the current state of book bans and attacks on public institutions of democracy. It was an excellent conversation, and the show begins with a thoughtful discussion between Jared and his cohost Michael Edison Hayden about the current right-wing attack on free speech. It’s a lengthy show, but I think it is worth every second…and if you’re like me, you’ll find yourself diving into the show’s backlist of topics, too.