Banned Books week (Sept. 18-24) is upon us once again. Books-to-prisons groups such as PLP contend with the reality of book banning and restrictions every day in the course of our efforts to get reading material into the hands of eager incarcerated people. We have a thick binder that lists the book sending restrictions for prisons across the country. It’s a lot to track and it’s ever changing! Here is one page for CA prisons:
A prison may require new books only or newish or used but with strict guidelines about no text underlining, highlighting, or “suspicious stains.” This clearly limits our ability to accept donated books! Each letter must be marked with its relevant restrictions so we can do our best to ensure the books are successfully received by the letter writer. A few examples:
This article “The Cruel Practice of Banning Books Behind Bars” provides an update on the current state of the prison book banning challenge.
Therefore, we’re super pleased that a generous donor has offered to match the total of all books purchased from our independent bookstore wishlists (or in-store displays) during the Banned Books 2022 week. PLP has four local bookstores who are partnering with us for the matching grant. These purchases will help us “beat the ban” in instances where new books are required!
Please consider shopping off these wish lists or stopping by the stores if you live in the Bay Area:
Finally, because we have such fabulous and committed volunteers we thought we’d share some of them holding books that we CAN (well to most prisons) send to incarcerated readers. These are commonly requested books that we try to keep in stock via our wishlists!
