Unbanning Books Panel: Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lee Rowland

From top left: Arthur Levine, Lee Rowland, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Kyle Zimmer, and Betsy Gomez

Maggie Tokuda-Hall (pictured, top right) is an award-winning author and one of the founders of Authors Against Book Bans. They are a national grassroots group of nearly 2,000 book creators (not just authors, they welcome illustrators, translators, anthology editors, etc...), and they're planning events all across the nation for this September's Banned Books week observance. "None of us fights alone."

Lee Rowland (pictured, top center) is the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. They are a national alliance of 60 groups who all care about free expression, including SCBWI. (They turn 50 this year!) Lee is a life-long 1st amendment attorney. "The first amendment is with us," on the side of the people who believe in liberty and free expression. Public opinion is with us, too. Needs to be a popular social movement. And carrying that energy into November... Their grassroots effort: Right to Read network.

Some highlights from what Maggie Tokuda-Hall shared:

Authors Against Book Bans offers training and guidance to authors whose books have been banned, and to other book creators who want to help and speak in front of school boards or library boards, and information about what project 2025 promises.

 "Pornography" is becoming defined as what some people don't like (like the existence of Queer people), which allows the banners to criminalize the creators, and criminalize the librarians who share those books (promising on page 5 of Project 2025 to register librarians as sex offenders for carrying books with Queer characters and/or themes). Other events planned include candidate score card making activities, read-ins, and more!

"It's not about the books. It's never been about the books. ...It's about identity panic, people realizing their consolidated power is starting to wane....None of us are alone."

Creators, Never obey in advance. (Don't self-censor.) We should not be catering to what we are afraid what might happen to our books. We should create bravely. 

Publishers, Never obey in advance. Publish bravely. Be stridently on the side of the freedom to read, all the time. Things publishers can do: 1) be transparent with authors about who on your team can support authors when their book is banned. 2) make toolkits available to help. 3) report bans yourself (report to multiple different places). 4) lawsuits, sign amicus briefs, 

Some highlights from what Lee Rowland shared: 

"The law is never enough to save us. It's necessary but not sufficient." Book bans keep happening because it's a political movement - right now, led by Moms for Liberty, who have a three part agenda. 1) banning books. 2) being anti-trans. 3) killing the public education system - full stop.

Even if you're not an activist, use your public institutions. Support an author reading from banned books. Weigh in with your local government. Write a letter to the editor at your local media. 

We're winning, so the banners have shifted their tactics - they're taking banning out of spotlight and doing it out of the public eye, because they're losing the battles in public. Our greatest tool in this moment is transparency.

Full of passion and hope, the session ended with an audience Q&A.

Bottom line: How can you help? 

Maggie's advice: Buy diverse literature. And using public libraries and taking out diverse books from those libraries will help support the publisher, author, and our public institutions.