Banned Books Week 2025

Banned Books Week Read-In on the Lawn (All Ages)
Saturday, October 11 | 2 – 4 PM
Olmsted Lawn, Main Library, 40 Washington St. Quincy, MA

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Held in the last week of September or first week of October, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. Banned Books Week 2025 will be held October 5 – 11, 2025. The theme this year “is Censorship Is So 1984 — Read for Your Rights”.

Current efforts to ban books and information held in schools, libraries, archives, and bookstores are a truth close to fiction – namely, the depiction of extreme censorship by an oppressive regime in George Orwell’s cautionary and prescient tale 1984. The Banned Books Week 2025 theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights. Learn more about censorship and banned books week from the American Library Association at www.bannedbooksweek.org

As part of the Banned Books Week, the Thomas Crane Public Library will be celebrating with Prison Book Program on Let Freedom Read Day, Saturday, October 11 between 2 – 4 PM for a Read-In on the Lawn of the Main Library (40 Washington St. in Quincy Center) for all ages! Bring your lawn chair or blanket & a book to read, or browse our collection, and learn as you go – whether it’s about banned books, censorship, or the Prison Book Program.

Prison Book Program is a nonprofit organization in our very own City of Quincy, providing free books and reading materials to incarcerated individuals across the United States, Guam, and Puerto Rico. As an approved book vendor for over 1,000 prisons and jails, PBP is committed to the transformative power of reading. Learn more about the Prison Book Program at www.prisonbookprogram.org

Additionally, there will be TEEN Banned Books bingo throughout the week at all the Quincy Library locations and a drop-in TEEN BANNED BOOKS TRIVIA all day on Saturday, October 11 for teens in grades 8-12 at the North Quincy Library on 381 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA. Exercise your right to read and check out a book to get a piece of candy, all day long.

Visit our Events Calendar for more info and more great happenings at TCPL.