Unbanning Books Panel: Kyle Zimmer and Betsy Gomez

Kyle Zimmer is President, CEO and Co-founder of First Book. Founded in 1992, First Book is a nonprofit social enterprise on a mission to ensure that all children, regardless of their background or zip code have access to equitable education. 

Kyle talks about First Book's three major programs: A research arm with national reach, a nonprofit ecommerce site that's moved over 13 million books especially elevating diverse authors and cultures, and something they call an accelerator where First Book works to provide communities access to a range of experts in everything from mental health, to literacy, to race and culture in the classroom.

First Book put actual facts back into the book ban discourse with their national studies on diverse books in classrooms. They also started the Diverse Books for All Coalition. Over 60 organizations serve kids 0-8 and with this group First Book is "locking arms and saying we believe in purchasing, in providing diverse books that reflect the full, wonderful spectrum of peoples and cultures in our country. . . we're trying to pull together to do collective purchasing because we want the publishers to hear us loud and clear that there's a strong market for these books, that they're needed, that they're desired in these settings by formal and informal educators..."

Kyle thinks we need a mass market approach to reach beyond us, the already true believers, in protecting intellectual freedom. First Book wants many, many, many more hands on the wheel.

Kyle (L), Betsy (R)

Betsy Gomez is the Assistant Director of Communications & Outreach for Unite Against Book Bans and the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom. Unite Against Book Bans is a national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship. ALA and its Office for Intellectual freedom actively advocates and educates in defense of intellectual freedom—the rights of library users to read, seek information, and speak freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment because intellectual freedom is a core value of the library profession, and a basic right in our democratic society. A publicly supported library provides free, equitable, and confidential access to information for all people of its community. 

The office tracks censorship data and 2023 saw the highest number of attempts and bans in recent history, with censorship attempts in libraries increasingly driven by organized groups targeting LGBTQIA+ and diverse content: 7 of the top 10 most challenged books including LGBTQIA content. Banned Books Week is a prominent public-facing program of ALA, launched in 1982 in response to Supreme Court decisions and state censorship, but you can read banned books any day of the week. Buy the panel's recommended banned book list from SCBWI's bookshop.org page or check them out from your local library.

KEEP TITLES CIRCULATING: Betsy says, "Circulation numbers do matter, especially when a book is challenged. If the library can share that the book is popular and people are checking it out they're more likely to keep it. You can also request your library to buy books if there's something you want to see more of, they may not be able to run out and buy everything you asked for, but if you want to see diverse materials in the library, ask for diverse materials."