How do we move forward from book bans in 2024?
Donate this Giving Tuesday to support youth authors and bring youth-authored literature into classrooms!
In 2023, we saw book bans and challenges continue to rise. At the same time, we saw students reverse book bans in Pennsylvania and start an advocacy organization in New York. We saw our own young readers at Novelly create “Freedom to Read” campaigns for their schools and communities.
Listening to Student Voices
Too often, the justification for book censorship in classrooms and schools is the “protection of students.” But what do students actually think?
As one of our young readers shared, “Reading these books completely opened my mind to new ideas, perspectives, and stories I never would've known about without reading these books…. They help us develop empathy, gain knowledge that might be unattainable to us, see figures we relate to, and give us the power to speak our truth and fight for what we believe is right, and this is something I hope more students get to experience.”
The answer is more books in schools, not fewer, especially books by diverse youth voices that authentically reflect how students are processing the world.
Supporting Youth Authors
In 2023, our youth authors wrote wildly creative and imaginative stories like:
A dystopian novella about an Asian-American boy who is forcibly put into a camp during the Covid-19 pandemic and escapes
A magical realism novella about a young girl who travels between different dimensions and is forced to confront extreme climate events in both of her worlds
A fantasy novella about a princess living a double life and that thoughtfully includes representation of black, albino, and LGBTQ+ characters
You can watch them talk about their world-building approaches in a webinar that they did with National Novel Writing Month:
In 2024, not only do we want to publish more diverse and talented teenage authors, but we also have exciting plans to get these books into English classrooms (hint: it involves The National Writing Project!).
Our next cohort of youth authors will get to writing in Summer 2024. This Giving Tuesday, we hope you’ll consider donating and help one more youth author bring their book to life.
Stories by Youth Authors. Amplified.
Novelly’s mission is to publish literature by diverse youth authors and get youth authors taught in every 8th to 12th grade English classroom. Novelly is a project of Independent Arts & Media, which is a 501c3 non-profit (EIN: 94-3355076). If you would like to make a tax-deductible corporate donation or sponsor a youth author, please contact us at anna@novelly.org.