Publisher Penguin Random House (PRH) celebrated Right to Read Day in Albany on April 20, during National Library Week. Clockwise from top left: Skip Dye, senior vice president of library sales and digital strategy; Eric Rosswood of New York Authors Against Book Bans; Dan Novack; Rosie Stewart; and student advocate Kaya Richards of SUNY–Buffalo.
Supporters of libraries and the First Amendment are often taken off guard when supporters of book bans get going. But they just need a little time to get organized. See how they’re starting to influence lawmakers in US states.
Nathalie op de Beeck writes at Publishers Weekly (PW), “In an encouraging turn, advocates of the right to read are noticing signs that legal pushback and public pressure are influencing state legislatures. States are fine-tuning imprecise language around librarianship and rethinking broad terms such as ‘appropriate’ and ‘harmful to minors’ — a promising development — although they’re also continuing to test constitutional limits.
“In Idaho, two challenges to the censorious Idaho House Bill 710, known as the Children’s School and Library Protection Act, have resulted in amendments to Idaho state code, even though the district court has yet to issue a ruling. While the amendments make the code more specific, they also establish a reading age category of ‘adolescent minors,’ ages 13–17, and indicate that many lawmakers believe libraries engage in ‘government speech.’
“Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, two recent bills aimed at limiting the freedom to read have failed. Wisconsin AB 5, a proposed act that would have required ‘school boards to make textbooks, curricula, and instructional materials available for inspection by school district residents,’ was vetoed by Wisconsin governor Tony Evers in October 2025. Another bill, AB 961, mandating conspicuous ‘warning labels for explicit content’ on ‘visual, written, or auditory material,’ was introduced in January and ‘dead’ as of March 23.
“And in Alaska, a bill favoring libraries has been proposed. Senate Bill 238, a library standards policy introduced by Fairbanks state senator Scott Kawasaki, was endorsed by the state chapter of Authors Against Book Bans during National Library Week, April 19–25. It sets guidelines for protecting librarians from criminal or civil liability, ensuring that material is ‘taken as a whole’ when under review, and requiring that complaints come from residents from the library’s jurisdiction.
“So what accounts for these more nuanced approaches to the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s Miller test for obscenity?
” ‘It’s hard to assign directionality to it, when there are so many countervailing things going on nationwide,’ said Rosie Stewart, senior manager of public policy at Penguin Random House. ‘Concern about midterms’ could be a driving force. …
” ‘We’ve had success in blue states that want to protect from book banning at the local level, but these efforts have moved to purple or even red states, to the point of Alaska now moving this forward,’ Stewart added. PRH is also watching Virginia Senate Bill 19, which codified Miller language and passed on April 6, and Arizona Senate Bill 1435, a book ban bill likely to be vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs.
“Sarah Lamdan, the executive director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, thinks many legislators are kicking the tire and testing for weakness in the constitutional language. …
“Lamdan pointed to a key finding from the ALA’s State of America’s Libraries Report: Approximately 91.7% of titles challenged in 2025 were targeted by pressure groups and government decision makers, whereas only 2% of challenges came from parents, and 1.4% came from individual library patrons.
“Those who challenge the freedom to read ‘are well-funded,’ Lamdan told PW, ‘so when they do something blatantly unconstitutional, they have the capacity to try again. It’s relentless because it’s a national political campaign.’
“John Chrastka, executive director of nonprofit advocacy organization EveryLibrary … called the situation ‘unmoored and highly weaponized ahead of elections.’
“[He argued that] ‘the family is not universal, but “appropriate” and “inappropriate” are used in the censorship contexts as universal terms. … Moving that conversation into one of relevance/irrelevance is important’ for library collection retention and development.
“Stewart, of PRH, credits book industry advocates for their nonstop effort to defend reading rights. ‘In the last couple years, our side has gotten so much more organized,’ she said. ‘In almost every state, there is a coalition that can activate, and it’s much broader than just the libraries fighting for themselves. It includes publishers, booksellers, and authors—that’s how we were able to kill most of the bills that came forward in Iowa this session.’
” ‘It’s a messy playing field,’ Stewart said, ‘but I guess I’m saying, I’d rather be us than them.’ “
More at Publishers Weekly, here.
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