BANNED BOOKS WEEK 2025 THEME UNVEILED
Annual Event Spotlights Orwellian Book Censorship
The American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers for Free Expression, and Banned Books Week Coalition are pleased to announce the theme for Banned Books Week 2025: “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” Banned Books Week will take place October 5–11, 2025.
ABA members: sign up for your free Banned Books Week kit today!
Current efforts to ban books and information held in schools, libraries, archives, and bookstores are a truth close to fiction — namely, the depiction of extreme censorship by an oppressive regime in George Orwell’s cautionary and prescient tale 1984. The Banned Books Week 2025 theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.
"Banned Books Week prompts us all to stand up and defend our First Amendment right to read freely,” said Barbara Stripling, Banned Books Week Coalition chair. “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."
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. The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites, which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books.
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.
Banned Books Week launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of book challenges in libraries, schools, and bookstores. The Banned Books Week Coalition, an international alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read, appoints an honorary chair and youth honorary chair to lead Banned Books Week. Past honorary chairs include filmmaker Ava DuVernay (Origin, 2024), literacy champion LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow, 2023), and banned authors George M. Johnson (All Boys Aren’t Blue, 2022) and Jason Reynolds (All American Boys, 2021). The 2025 honorary chairs will be announced in the coming weeks.
A variety of free downloads, resources, and materials to support Banned Books Week activities can be found at bannedbooksweek.org and ala.org/bbooks
Libraries, schools, and nonprofit organizations that plan to participate in Banned Books Week are encouraged to apply for a Judith F. Krug Memorial Fund Programming Grant from the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF). Grants are awarded for $1,000, and the deadline for application is April 30, 2025.
About Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.
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.
Shareable Social Media Assets
Want to show your support for Banned Books Week? You can with the shareable social media assets on BookWeb! Make sure to tag @ABFEFreeExpression and @AmericanBooksellers and use the hashtag #BannedBooksWeek so we can share.