Inspired by a banned book puzzle I’d received for my birthday in 2023, I resolved to read the list of banned books included with the puzzle. I made significant progress in 2024 with 24 titles read, reviewed and shared on Facebook. In 2025 my activity dropped off to 9 titles, the last one, Bridge to Terebinthia by Katherine Paterson, completed last June.
It’s not like you to drop a project halfway through.
Ditto. What happened?
A bunch of things that drew my attention elsewhere, 9. Mom’s death and what followed- -estate administration, celebration of life, so many little details, plus processing the grief. All of that absorbed a lot of my energy and put a damper on my curiosity. At the same time, it was Living History season at Fort Walla Walla Museum. Much of the creative time I had was spent re-memorizing presentations for events in July, August, and October. I was also building up to the tenth birthday celebration for Small-g City, book one in my fantasy/mythology series, released in August, 2015. You might remember this involved a 10-book giveaway (mostly to Little Free Libraries) and a book signing event on August 16 (commemorative cookies, book bag giveaway and donning the goddess costume I’ve curated for series events).
Then, there was the Banned Book reading project itself.
That strikes me as odd. Did you lose your commitment to taking this on?
No, Lily, the list remained dutifully pinned to my bulletin board for six quiet months. I always intended to get back to it. But I was experiencing a type of burnout.
Banned Books: The list, languishing on my bulletin board.
Were your eyes tired?
No, but my mind was numbed by the limited number of topics the books cover. I felt swamped by information about teen suicide, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, gender identity, sexual identity, racism, the types of hatred some people feel about immigrants or non-Christian religion. There was something else at play, too. My process is to read a banned book, write my own critique, then guess who might want to ban this book, and why.
I find your process is quite interesting.
Though I missed a few, many times my guesses were on target. There appears to be a common thread between the people and organizations that seek to ban books. Fear of something/someone other than themselves. Willful ignorance and demonization of lifestyles/outlooks/beliefs different from their own. A propensity to blame people different from themselves for societal problems that we are all accountable for. Garden variety hatred. The driving need to maintain their own dominant position in the social and economic hierarchy. One or more of these threads appears in most of the rationales as to why books should be banned, often masked in the guise of protecting children.
From what?
From learning things their parents and/or members of their communities don’t want them to know, and possibly preventing them from asking questions that adults don’t want to answer.
Why did you decide to start reading the books again?
Partly because I’m a sucker for the start of a new year. Also, I am not a fan of leaving an uncompleted project hanging. We were raised to finish what we start, as you well know.
Like promising to be in the piano recital at the end of the school year when we want to start lessons again in the fall?
Exactly like that, 9.
To restart the project I’m employing a tactic I use when I’m reading a magazine and hit an article I just don’t want to read, one about a war or a political figure that I consider way off base. I go to the end of the magazine and read backward until that’s the only article I haven’t read, then grit my teeth and power through it. This gets the magazine read in entirety (“finish what you’ve started”), and in a reasonable amount of time because I don’t just sit there, stalled on that one article.
Which means I am now reading the last book on the list (sorted alphabetically by author): Front Desk by Kelly Yang.
At the end of the Banned Book list: “Front Desk” by Kelly Yang. 21 titles to go!
Hey, that girl on the cover looks about my age!
She’s 10, so just a little bit older than you are, 9. It was published in 2018, but if it had been around in 1968 I bet you would read it. Mia’s life is really different from yours on the outside. She’s a Chinese immigrant who scrapes along in life in the Los Angeles area, helping her parents run a motel.
Does she go to school, too?
She does. I’m about a third of the way through the book, at which point she has a best friend, and a worst enemy, and a plan to save her family financially through a writing contest. But the entry fee is $300. . . At the moment I’m holding my breath, like it’s the episode of “Leave it to Beaver” where Beaver and Wally mail order a baby alligator and try to hide it in their bathtub.
I found it very strange that two boys had their own bathroom, with a tub, no less!
Nearly as strange as mail ordering a baby alligator, Lily, but I digress. . .
At this point I’m hard-pressed to imagine who would want to ban Front Desk and why they would want to do so. Who wouldn’t root for a really smart little girl who lives in highly challenging circumstances and, in spite of the trouble that usually results, is constantly trying to figure out how to make things better?
Stay tuned. The answer will appear at my Facebook page, along with my book review and my best pre-research guess about Banner ID.
In the spirit of the season, we wish you a happy, healthy and productive 2026, with enough time to scratch a few of those uncompleted projects off your list!
