Banned Books Week 2025 is taking place this week, and freedom to read advocates came out swinging. One might say their anti-censorship action hasn’t let up since this time last year or even earlier. When January’s inauguration of the Trump administration ramped up threats to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and targeted discourse on race, gender, and immigration status, sites for intellectual freedom including the Institute for Library and Museum Studies, Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities came under attack and have kept activists on high alert.

At PEN America, which on October 1 released its annual survey of book bans in K–12 public schools and school libraries, Freedom to Read program director Kasey Meehan said Banned Books Week is an opportunity to raise awareness of off-year elections, legislative sessions, and local school and library board decision-making. “We joke with the American Library Association, National Coalition Against Censorship, and EveryLibrary that it’s ‘banned books year,’ ” Meehan told PW. “There’s a lot that we can do for the week itself, but the goal is to keep mobilizing people to show up.”

Authors, publishers, literary organizations, bookstores, and students have taken the fight to state and federal courts, and a public library book removal case in Texas, Little v. Llano County, appears headed for the U.S. Supreme Court, pending a petition for a writ of certiorari. Last week, And Tango Makes Three authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson filed a notice of appeal to protest their book’s ongoing removal in Escambia County (Fla.) School District. “Our number one piece of advice would be, it’s essential to organize,” Richardson told PW. “The opposition to the freedom to read is highly organized, and that’s how they’ve been able to make disturbing gains.”

Parnell, who’s active with Authors Against Book Bans and the Writers Guild Initiative, agreed. “It’s important to talk to people about what’s going on, pinpoint areas within our own communities where school boards can be talked with or confronted, and look for ways advocates on a grassroots level can respond,” he said.

The American Library Association, working from a theme that “Censorship Is So 1984,” announced George Takei as its honorary BBW chairperson and provided a slate of in-person and online events for all ages, including an October 9 session on tools for responding to book challenges. ALA’s week culminates in an October 11 call to action, Let Freedom Read Day, on which people are invited to take at least one step to defend the right to read. EveryLibrary likewise has scheduled more than two dozen conversations with authors and industry insiders, offering free and public virtual sessions for allies far and wide. Among these is an October 10 “Publishing in the Storm” panel hosted by We Are Stronger Than Censorship co-founder Lee Wind, with industry veterans Jason Low, Cheryl and Wade Hudson, and Antonio Gonzalez Cerna.

Groups including Penguin Random House’s Intellectual Freedom Task Force have their work cut out for them, and Banned Books Week provides a focus on issues that matter to the book industry. As BBW began, PRH partnered with EveryLibrary and First Book to get its Banned Wagon on the road at the West End Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C., on October 5. The Banned Wagon, carrying 30 featured titles, continues to Solid State Books in D.C. (October 8) and Philadelphia’s Northeast Regional Library (October 10) and Parkway Central Library (October 11).

PRH also hosted a Save Our Stories Supper at D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Library on October 6, in conjunction with a Save Our Stories fundraising campaign, inviting an array of authors and staunch supporters that included newly appointed Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets, Malinda Lo, Jason Reynolds, Nic Stone, and two nephews of The Fire Next Time author James Baldwin, Trevor Baldwin and Karim Karefa-Smart.

Rounding out the week, PEN America will host its second annual Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on October 11. Highlights will include a keynote talk by PEN president Jennifer Finney Boylan and an onstage interview with Margaret Atwood, recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award.

At a tense time in the U.S., dozens of luminaries are gathering—in person and virtually—to increase the wattage of Banned Books Week.