October 4–10 marks Banned Books Week, an event sponsored by the American Library Association and 15 other organizations, including Amnesty International, Little Free Library, and the National Council of Teachers of English. Established in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in challenged and banned books nationwide, the initiative highlights the essential freedom to access diverse literature and read without censorship. Unfortunately, the history of book banning is neither new nor brief.
In 1959, Alabama challenged Garth Williams’s children’s book The Rabbits’ Wedding. The story simply depicts two bunnies getting married—one black and one white. State officials and the White Citizens Council argued the book went too far, prompting State Senator E. O. Eddins to demand that libraries remove it and burn it. Emily Wheelcock Reed, Director of the Alabama Public Service, refused to destroy or pull the book, though she ultimately moved it to a reserved section to protect it. It was not until June 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, and Alabama’s state constitution was not updated until November 2000. Eventually, The Rabbits’ Wedding returned to the children’s section where it belonged.
While most states restrict books on a district-by-district or county-by-county basis, my home state of South Carolina is among the few that have enacted statewide bans. In May 2025, South Carolina led the nation in statewide book bans—a disheartening distinction. This censorship coincides with broader educational challenges: South Carolina ranks roughly 13th highest in functional illiteracy nationwide, with nearly 57.6% of adults reading below an 8th-grade level and only 54% to 56% of 3rd-grade students reading at grade level.
Despite these challenges, many books eventually find their way back. Acclaimed works like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner have all overcome local challenges in South Carolina. In Beaufort County alone, people challenged 97 books in 2022, though libraries ultimately returned all but five to the shelves.
Resistance to censorship has historical roots here, too. In 1987, a student at Baptist College of Charleston (now Charleston Southern University) asked to remove F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby from the undergraduate reading list. The college president, Jairy Hunter, refused. Years later, when a member of a local church tried to remove the first Harry Potter book from a school district because of its themes of magic, a parishioner asked what I thought. My response was simple: “The only real magic in Harry Potter was that it was able to get kids to read.”
When this week rolls around each year, I look up the list of challenged and banned books in South Carolina. This year, there are 21. They remain available in bookstores and select public libraries by request, but they’ve been removed from school shelves—though I’m told a few manage to sneak back in.
I usually pick one up out of curiosity. Of the 21 titles, six are by Sarah J. Maas, a fantasy author who has sold over 75 million copies worldwide; I read one recently and found it genuinely intriguing. Ellen Hopkins has three books on the list, tackling heavy, real-world themes like addiction, abuse, mental health, and trauma—topics that deeply resonate with young readers.
Which brings me to my point: if you want your pre-teen or teen to read, tell them they can’t. But if you do, be prepared. It might just spark a change—or convince them that bunnies who love each other deserve to get married.
