Cavalier House Books marked Banned Books Week on Saturday with a read-in featuring titles that have been challenged, restricted, or removed from schools and libraries.
The Oct. 10 event began at noon and included discussions about why books are challenged, how review processes work, and disputes over access to certain titles in Louisiana and across the country.
For the event, attendees were encouraged to bring their own banned book or check out Cavalier’s selection, then sit inside to read. Afterward, attendees discussed the books themselves, why they were banned, how to fight book banning, and news about recently banned books.
The differences between banned, challenged, and restricted books were also discussed.
A challenged book has faced an attempt to restrict access. A banned book has been removed as a result of that challenge. Restricted books come after a challenge that triggers a review process instead of a ban. They often remain in libraries but have limits on how and by whom people can access them.
Cavalier had its own display of recently banned or challenged books, including Brave New World, The Fault in Our Stars, Speak, Water for Elephants, and Thirteen Reasons Why.
Signs set up in the reading area explained steps that can be taken to fight book banning including voting, showing up to school and library board meetings to share your thoughts, writing letters to the school and/or library board, sharing your enthusiasm and support for the library on social media, borrowing books from the library, requesting books that aren’t in stock, utilizing the services the library offers, encouraging friends and family to sign up for library cards, organizing protests, spreading the word about book bans and how to fight them, remembering your rights and taking a stance to advocate for those rights to read, and contacting political representatives to urge them to fight against book bans.
Attendees were also given free anti-censorship book marks and stickers as well as a choice between two free audio books on book banning and anti-censorship steps thanks to a partnership with Libro.fm
