'We just want to celebrate stories.' Observing Banned Books Week with a Seattle bookseller

Seattle booksellers and librarians are helping people get their hands on banned books.

Thousands of titles are banned from public libraries and schools each year, a trend that prompted the American Library Association to launch Banned Books Week in 1982. This year's Banned Books Week began on Oct. 5. The celebration — if that's the right word for it — goes until Oct. 11. But people from states where book bans are more common than they are in Washington are finding help in Seattle year-round.

"We see a ton of people coming from red states who have already seen the effects of these book bans, whether it's in their schools or in their bookstores," said Charlie Hunts, owner of Charlie's Queer Books in Fremont. "They stock up with us. They bring it home. They share it amongst their community, they even bring it to their schools to share with other parents. We're seen as a resource in this moment."

The Seattle Public Library is a resource, too, especially for young readers. SPL's Books Unbanned program provides anyone ages 13 to 26, living anywhere in the U.S. access to the library's entire collection of e-books and audiobooks. Interested readers just have to fill out an online form.

"Like librarians, we [booksellers] just want to celebrate stories," Hunts said. "We just want to share really amazing, imaginative ways of being in the world with other people. We recognize the role that books have played in our lives. I know that my transition as a transgender person would have happened much sooner if I had the access to stories that I encountered in my 30s."

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According to the American Library Association, the most common justifications complainants have presented when challenging books are "false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice." The Association has also found that books that include LGBTQ people or people of color account for more than half of book bans.

PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression, found 6,870 instances of book bans across the country during the 2024-25 school year; that's down from more than 10,000 book bans in the 2023-24 school year. Bans in 2024-25 covered more than 3,752 books, meaning some books were banned in multiple jurisdictions. Florida recorded the most of any one state, with 2,304 book bans.

Books that are formally challenged may also be restricted, limiting access, for example, by requiring readers under a certain age to have a parent or guardian present to borrow or buy a copy.

These book bans don't just affect readers, Hunts said. Some states are targeting the sources of banned books.

In Arkansas, lawmakers passed a law that would have imposed criminal penalties for librarians and booksellers who distributed materials deemed harmful to minors. Arkansas Act 372 would have also required public libraries to implement a book challenge procedure to allow people to challenged materials based on "appropriateness," a term which was not clearly defined, according to the American Library Association. A federal judge blocked the law from taking effect in December, though, declaring key parts of the legislation unconstitutional.

Texas has taken a different approach. In 2023, lawmakers there passed House Bill 900, known as the READER Act, which required booksellers to rate the sexual content of materials they sell to schools.

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Hunts said that would apply to any books he sold to a Texas institution, past, present, and future.

"Any book that I've ever sold to a library or government institution as well has to be rated," he said. "As you can imagine, that's another really heavy burden to put on bookstores, and it's also incredibly subjective."

The definition of "sexual content" may vary from school district to school district.

"And we all know that that also means queer content by its very nature," Hunts added.

Hunts referred to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Prof. Emily J. M. Knox's book, "Book Banning in 21st-Century America."

"[Knox] said, for book challengers, any book about LGBTQ issues is about sex by definition," Hunts said. "No matter what the book is about, whether that's penguins, a Pride Parade, going to the park, a wedding, it does not matter. It's about sex. That's why you can see so many of our books are challenged and banned."

But at shops like Charlie's Queer Books, those titles are proudly on display.

Hunts said he and his fellow booksellers are reading as widely as they can, so that when a customer comes through the door — no matter where they're from — "we get it right and matchmake to their heart's delight."

"Any bookseller right now, I would assume, is feeling a fair amount of responsibility to combat what's happening right now, a fair amount of responsibility to be activists in this moment," he said. "Whether we want to or not, we're kind of put in that place."