New initiative sends free banned books to Floridians

Share
banned books, First Amendment
Banned books. Displayed at The Hive St. Pete. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (Aug. 2023)

Listen:

Florida is one of the top states in the nation for book bans in schools. One organization is sending banned books to Floridians for free.

Joyce Linnehan, co-founder of BannedBooksUSA.org, was disturbed by the book bans in Florida and across the nation.

“Books in libraries have always been really important to us, and, our democracy, I think, is being threatened by these attempts to quell intellectual freedom.”

So she partnered with Paul English, a fellow bookworm and tech entrepreneur who founded the travel website Kayak. They created BannedBooksUSA.org to provide free books to Floridians that have been challenged, banned, or removed from schools. Customers only have to pay for shipping.

Andy Hunter is the CEO of Bookshop.org, the supplier of the books. He says BannedBooksUSA.org’s model has been sustainable so far.

“Donations are matching the book sales roughly, so it seems like it’s able to go on. People are ordering books, hundreds of books have shipped so far, but we’ve also gotten thousands of dollars of donations.”

Linnehan encourages readers to fight against the spike in book banning.

“Start showing up at your library board meetings, and your school library board meetings, because other people, the people who would ban books, are showing up and they are speaking up, and that’s how this is happening. It’s been going on for a long time, so it’s really important that people who value intellectual freedom and the freedom to read are showing up in those spaces.”

The organization is hoping to expand across the nation.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Traffic Jam - All Souls Edition
Player position: