Banned Books Week 2026 Includes Let Freedom Read Day

Banned Books Week, Oct. 4-10, celebrates classic and popular novels, and protests restricting public access to well-written books providing knowledge, information and diverse perspectives.

Let Freedom Read Day graphic_evelynkanter.com — Courtesy Banned Books Week

This year, the final day of Banned Books Week is being celebrated as Let Freedom Read Day, to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available.

During Banned Books Week, and especially on Let Freedom Read Day, you should check out a banned book or challenged book from your local library, or buy one in your local bookstore.

Find and Read Banned Books

Click here for the full list of most challenged books in 2025.

Here’s a tip sheet of how to protect our freedom to read on any day.

Barnes & Noble has a website page of 100 banned books to buy and read.

In my hometown, NYC –

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is hosting giveaways of banned books, and a banned books reading list, including Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

The Brooklyn Public Library system is hosting programs, book giveaways and all-ages activities that highlight the joy of reading and thinking freely, including a “Love Your Library” day..

Banned Books Week_evelynkanter — Image: NYPL

Show us how you’re taking action on social media by using the hashtags #LetFreedomReadDay and #BannedBooksWeek

Some of our favorite books and authors are banned somewhere in the USA. That includes books turned into popular – even Academy Award winning -Hollywood films, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, and books by Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize winner.

Also on the banned books list is 1984 by Aldous Huxley, about a world of total control of the people by those in power – timely again in these times of the growing number of authoritarian leaders around the world.

Banned Books Week is organized by the American Library Association, and public libraries in many cities offer special programs highlighting banned books, including offering them online.

According to the ALA, in 2025, “92 percent of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials and decision makers, up from 72 percent in 2024. Less than 3 percent of challenges originated from individual parents”.

ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is an award-winning journalist with 25+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and author of guidebooks and smartphone apps – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.