Banned Books Week is held every September, yet in these past few years, it has become even more important to educate the public about. Celebrating the freedom to read is a cornerstone of a free community. When others dictate what is or isn’t available to read based on biased opinions, it is dangerous. I teach my older elementary school students about the history of banning books and they are continually shocked by how it starts small, but then grows to epic proportions. Student lessons on this even reach our present-day times when book bans and challenges are at the highest levels on record.
As an educator and librarian I am trained on how to select the best books for my school’s library collection. A book that I will definitely be adding and reading with students is the humorous, yet informative picture book, This Book is Banned.
From the start of the story the narrator is speaking directly to the reader, warning them that they will never make it to the end of the book because an arbitrary decision to ban the book’s topics will keep them from reaching its conclusion. Through humor, the writer demonstrates how book bans affect people’s ability to choose for themselves.
The hand-drawn illustrations by the artist, Julia Patton, are detailed and they help the information get through to the reader in a funny way. Readers will want to go back and look at the images again and discuss what they see.
I highly recommend this book for elementary students and the larger community. It sends an important message while entertaining the reader about this topic. Very rarely do picture books do this well. It would benefit the reader to supplement this book with further research into the current situation in which books are being banned, especially books by people whose perspectives are not widely shared.
Thanks to NetGalley for sharing an ARC of this book with me.
Here is an interview of the author, Raj Haldar, as he discusses what brought him to write about this topic and a video of him reading aloud the book:
Listen to and/or read NPR's All Things Considered news broadcast about This Book is Banned.
Middle grade readers can continue their study of this topic by reading the following chapter books:
Ban This Book, by Alan Gratz
Attack of the Black Rectangles, by A.S. King
What are more books that deal with censorship that you'd like to share in the comments?
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