Banned Books Week and Let Freedom Read Day – Oct 5-11

Posted by Youth Service America on September 30, 2025

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.

A variety of free downloads, resources, and materials to support Banned Books Week activities can be found here.

On Let Freedom Read Day (October 11) everyone is encouraged to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available!

The Little Free Library® (LFL) nonprofit organization has released an updated version of its interactive Book Ban Map. First launched in 2024, the map now includes the latest data, highlighting where bans are intensifying and showing nearby Little Free Library book-sharing boxes where readers can freely access books.