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Last week, I arrived at the Brooklyn Book Festival, New York City\u2019s largest free literary festival, and headed straight toward PEN America\u2019s Banned Book Garden, organized in collaboration with Reading Rhythms<\/a>. There were other stops on my list,\u00a0and I was also hoping to collect a few (or perhaps dozens of) free books. But a garden curated by and for readers struck me as the proper way to begin the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n When I arrived, festival-goers were browsing banned titles provided by Penguin Random House and curling up with them on a nearby couch and chairs, provided by Teak NYC.\u00a0<\/p>\n I introduced myself to Izzy and Rachel, two friends who were walking around the festival when the cover of one banned book in particular caught Izzy\u2019s eye. \u201cI went, \u2018Holy crap, Captain Underpants? That\u2019s banned? Who would\u2019ve thought?\u2019\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The pair, now 24, told me that the garden sparked a memory from their time at their New Jersey elementary school, where The Hunger Games series<\/a> by Suzanne Collins was banned. But that didn\u2019t stop them from getting their hands on the books: As Izzy explained to me, one of their peers snuck in copies of the books from home and passed them around to other students in their grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just remember there would be kids that I\u2019d never even talked to, like a jock, and I remember he\u2019d be whispering between classes, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s your turn for the copy. Go read it,\u2019\u201d they said. \u201cIt became like a secret club between everyone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even with book bans on the rise, kids will continue to seek out literature and bond over it, Izzy said. \u201cIt builds a community, this passion for reading.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the course of the afternoon, I chatted with many individuals milling around the tent. Some expressed shock after learning about the state of literary censorship, while others said they found it disappointing but unsurprising. But each of them responded in the same way to one question: When I asked if any of the books featured in the tent impacted them as a young reader, they all quickly swung around to point to at least one.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nancy, who stopped by the garden with her daughter, told me she was horrified to learn that Judy Blume\u2019s books were among the many that have been stripped from shelves. She fondly recalled reading Blume\u2019s works \u2014 especially Are You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret. \u2014 with all of her friends when she was 10 years old, adding that she had been dying for her daughter to read it too.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat book taught me about my body,\u201d she said. \u201cThat it\u2019s banned is crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As a steady stream of visitors continued to flow in and out of the tent, I wandered to the back corner, where a few families had gathered so that their children could design bookmarks with crayons, stickers, and tassels. Geloah watched over her daughter, Batya, as she colored in the many geometric shapes she had outlined on her bookmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n Geloah told me that when Batya, 8, spotted the PEN America poster at the front of the tent, she asked her mother for the first time why anyone would ban a book. \u201cI said, \u2018Because there are some places where people don\u2019t like certain ideas, and they will try to make it so that people don\u2019t read about those things,\u2019\u201d Geloah said.<\/p>\n When I asked Batya what she thought of book bans, she told me that they didn\u2019t seem fair. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why people would take away things that other people like,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s the best way I can put it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Across the table from Geloah and Batya sat Dante and his daughter, Isabella. Isabella, 7, decorated bookmarks that she said she planned to use while reading her all-time favorite literature: Dav Pilkey\u2019s Dog Man and Paula Harrison\u2019s Kitty series. Referencing PEN America\u2019s Index of Book Bans<\/a>, I learned that Dog Man was banned in Hernando County, Florida, in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n After joining the 7- and 8-year-olds to decorate a bookmark of my own, I wandered over to World Voices Festival and Literary Programs Manager Sarah Dillard, who was handing out postcards to visitors on which they could write words of encouragement to librarians in Florida. Once they finished, they could either drop the postcards in a box or pin them on a bulletin board for others to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs a woman of color and a first-generation college student and American, I first found safety in a library,\u201d read one of the postcards on the bulletin board.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom always says, \u2018No one is a troublemaker while they are reading a book,\u2019\u201d read another. \u201cThat may be true, but I\u2019m sorry silly people think reading books makes trouble. You are the best kind of troublemakers!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When 4 p.m. rolled around, I left the garden to attend \u201cPortraits of the Everyday,\u201d a panel that featured three authors with short story collections. An engrossed audience listened as Ed Park, Lynne Tillman, and Jared Temus read short excerpts from and discussed their work. PEN America\u2019s Director of World Voices Festival and Literary Programs Sabir Sultan moderated the panel, inquiring about the rhythm of the authors\u2019 prose, the structure of their collections, and the right way to go about ending a short story.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the panel, I stopped by PEN America\u2019s booth, where we were encouraging passersby to subscribe to our mailing list<\/a> and offering them more information about upcoming events<\/a>. We were also handing out books, postcards, and \u201cI Read Banned Books\u201d shirts<\/a> designed by the author Mike Curato.<\/p>\n![\"Colorful](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/P1011266-jpg.webp.webp\")
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