Banned Books Week (September 27 - October 3, 2020) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. It brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
Please visit the Banned Books Week website for more information and resources for Banned Books Week.
If your library is closed for COVID this year, Banned Books Week will be virtual. If your library has a teen social media account, specifically Instagram, below you will find some virtual BBW ideas.
Type: Active
Age: Middle school
Optimal size: 20+
Estimated cost: $26 - $50
Planning time: 2-5 hours
Frequency: Daily
Learning outcomes
- Demonstrate technology use that is safe, ethical and responsible ● Leverage digital tools to broaden their perspective
Instructions
At my library, we have an Instagram account for teens. Instagram is great because it allows you to create interactive activities including polls, trivia, and a question box. If you are debating which social media account to get, first find out which platform your teen patrons use the most but if you are looking for interaction, Instagram is best. If you'd like to see some great teen library IG accounts, click here and here.
If you would like some tips to get your IG account started, click here.
The Classic Shredded Book
Many libraries shred a banned book, from the sale or discarded shelf. They put it through the shredder and put the shreds in a large clear container. Teens are then asked to pick up the container to try to figure out the book title. But they won't be able to pick up the container so can you do this program remotely? You still can, I've done it.
- Find a side of the container that has a really hard clue and take a close up picture. Post that pic to your Instastory or IG feed and give teens a couple of hours to try to guess. I'd recommend using Instastory because teens cannot see each others answers but they can see others answers in the comment section of the feed.
- After a couple of hours, post clue #2 by posting a pic of the side of the container with an easier clue. Then allow teens to guess.
- If you need to, do a third clue.
- You can do this on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Tik Tok.
Display
You can do a display in the library, take a picture, and post to social media. If teens check out those books, take and post a pic using a hashtag of your choice, they can enter a raffle to win a prize. You can also do this with your eBooks; teens can take and post a pic of the downloaded book on their device. You can also do this on Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat using the comment or chat feature. Teens can use the hashtag you chose for Facebook and Twitter. On Snapchat, teens can take their pic and send it using your post's chat box.
Guess the Reason
Using the poll or quiz feature for Instastories, show a picture of one banned book at a time and have teens guess why it was banned. Popular books are best because teens will be familiar-Hunger Games; Harry Potter; The Hate U Give; and Captain Underpants.
Guess the Banned Book
On a paper bag, write why the book the banned then cover each book with a paper bag. Using the question box feature for Istastories, have teens try to guess the book. Be sure to include a book title bank for teens to choose from. You can also do this on Facebook, SnapChat, and Tik Tok using the comment or chat feature.
Banned Book Reader
Using the poll feature in the instastory, create a slide show of banned book titles and on each slide ask teens if they have read the book.
OR
You can create a list of banned books on one sheet and title it, How Many of These Banned Books Have you Read? Teens can say the number of books using the question box.
Find Your Book Bad Boy/Bad Girl
I created a Book Tinder game on Instagram using the poll feature. I then gave teens book recs based on their answers. You can do this too with banned books.
Banned Book Club
Choose a graphic novel so that teens have time to read it. Two graphic novels that are always on the banned list include Drama by Raina Telgemeier and This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki. Conduct your book club over Zoom. If you have a Scholastic Library Partnership, you can get Drama really cheap if you want to give out copies.
Give out prizes for teens who participate.
Evaluation
I did some BBW activities over Instagram last year and it was successful. I already had a teen following so I did get some participation. What I noticed was that most of the participants were teens who did not come to in-house programming and they were in high school. If you have a difficult time attracting high school teens, they may be on Instagram.