“The Sun is also a Star” by Nicola Yoon is banned in Virginia school districts — it’s been challenged because of its topics of immigration and themes of romance.
“Like a Love Story” by Abdi Nazemian has been banned in many school districts for discussing sex, LGBTQ+ themes and the AIDS epidemic.
Books like these may be missing from some bookstores or library shelves. But now, Banned Books Box will deliver them right to your door.
Ariel Hakim, Banned Books Box owner and Akron native, dreamed up the subscription service toward the end of her time working at Wadsworth Public Library. After learning about parents who complained and a school administration that apologized after a college student read a children’s book with two dads, Hakim realized that book bans were not a thing of the past.
“I guess I was just surprised to hear that,” Hakim said. “Not that people were really offended about books sometimes, but that people were starting to go to an effort to have books, access to books, removed from not only their kids, but everybody else too.”
What started with a few parents wanting books removed from their child’s school has led to books being banned in entire districts, author visits being canceled and books not being purchased, Hakim said.
This is where Hakim’s commitment to get censored books to readers began.
“It was just thinking about how much I love books,” Hakim said. “And how much books have, in my life, really given me, like a number of, “wow,” moments where my perspective has changed, or that I’ve felt seen in some way, and those experiences I think are so important. For me, the mission is to make sure that others aren’t missing out on those experiences.”
The idea of the subscription service came naturally to her. She is shipping out banned books (and book-themed items) to almost 200 subscribers monthly.
“I just want to see books out there,” Hakim said. “I want people to read and realize, this is not harming anybody. This is actually a benefit to our communities to have these books in library collections.” Hakim said.
She began the service in 2021 after learning about the banning of books with themes about identity, the AIDS epidemic and characters who are in the LGBTQ+ community, marginalized or underrepresented. In November of 2021, she mailed off “Blood in the Water” by Heather Ann Thompson and “The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots” by Geoffrey Budworth, marking the beginning of the service.
How the banned books subscription service works
The mission of Banned Books Box is to “celebrate the power of stories that make readers feel seen and understood, expand worldviews and nurture empathy” through sharing censored books.
“I felt like there was a need that people needed to understand,” Hakim said. “And see that books about LGBTQ+ characters and by LGBTQ+ authors, along with BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, people of color] characters and BIPOC authors, were being targeted by people who wanted to remove books, most of all, from schools.”
Subscribers have three choices: original, slim or literal monthly subscription boxes. Along with one or two banned books, readers will also receive signed book plates, enamel pins or other relevantly themed extras in the original and slim monthly boxes.
Prices for a Banned Books Box subscription start at $22 a month for one book and go up to $52 a month for two books and a few handpicked “bookish” goodies.
Even though the (one-time-purchase) single boxes are being restocked, the monthly subscription is still available with mystery book selections that fall into rotating categories.
Hakim hand-picks the books that are shipped monthly. Chosen books sometimes correlate to the history, culture and achievements of specific groups each month like National Native American Heritage Month in November.
Hakim runs Banned Books Boxes from Wadsworth, where the subscription boxes are produced and shipped. Hakim also has a booth stacked with censored books in the Northside Market and is looking forward to expanding to a bookmobile.
| Books sent out in the Banned Books Box since 2021 | |
|---|---|
| Title | Author |
| Blood in the Water | Heather Ann Thompson |
| The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots | Geoffrey Budworth |
| Gender Queer | Maia Kobabe |
| Felix Ever After | Kacen Callender |
| Lawn Boy | Jonathan Evison |
| All Boys Aren’t Blue | George M. Johnson |
| Speak No Evil | Uzodinma Iweala |
| Concrete Rose | Angie Thomas |
| Dear Martin | Nic Stone |
| Out of Darkness | Ashley Hope Pérez |
| Men We Reaped | Jesmyn Ward |
| Heavy | Kiese Laymon |
| Dear Justyce | Nic Stone |
| Cemetery Boys | Aiden Thomas |
| My Time Among the Whites | Jennine Capó Crucet |
| The Handmaid’s Tale Graphic Novel | Margaret Atwood and Renee Ault, ill. |
| Jane Against the World | Karen Blumenthal |
| In the Dream House | Carmen Maria Machado |
| Boy Erased | Garrard Conley |
| How Beautiful We Were | Imbolo Mbue |
| Homegoing | Yaa Gyasi |
| The Art of Drag | Jake Hall |
| The Prince and the Dressmaker | Jen Wang |
| The Autobiography of Gucci Mane | Gucci Mane and Neil Martinez-Belkin |
| Prison Ramen | Clifton Collins Jr. and Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez |
| The Prophets | Robert Jones, Jr. |
| Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You | Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi |
| The Sun and Her Flowers | Rupi Kaur |
| Not That Bad | Roxane Gay |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas |
| The Midnight Lie | Marie Rutkoski |
| The Black Friend | Frederick Joseph |
| The Other Americans | Laila Lalami |
| The Marrow Thieves | Cherie Dimaline |
| An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States | Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |
| This Book is Gay | Juno Dawson |
| Marriage of a Thousand Lies | SJ Sindu |
| Two Boys Kissing | David Levithan |
| Grit | Gillian French |
| Cool for the Summer | Dahlia Adler |
| This Is Why They Hate Us | Aaron H. Aceves |
| When They Call You a Terrorist | Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele |
| The Black Kids | Christina Hammonds Reed |
| Yolk | Mary H. K. Choi |
| I’ll Be the One | Lyla Lee |
| None of the Above | I. W. Gregorio |
| Just Ash | Sol Santana |
| My Friend Dahmer | Derf Backderf |
| Monday’s Not Coming | Tiffany D. Jackson |
| Wintersong | S. Jae-Jones |
| The Good Luck Girls | Charlotte Nicole Davis |
| Long Way Down | Jason Reynolds |
| American Street | Ibi Zoboi |
| From Here | Luma Mufleh |
| The Music of What Happens | Bill Konigsberg |
| March: Book One | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, iIl. |
| March: Book Two | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, ill. |
| You Too? | Janet Gurtler, ed. |
| The Nowhere Girls | Amy Reed |
| I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter | Erika L. Sánchez |
| The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School | Sonora Reyes |
| Take the Mic | Bethany C. Morrow, ed. |
| Internment | Samira Ahmed |
| A Clash of Steel | C. B. Lee |
| In Deeper Waters | F. T. Lukens |
| Snake Falls to Earth | Darcie Little Badger |
| Hearts Unbroken | Cynthia Leitich Smith |
| Good Talk | Mira Jacob |
| Allies | Shakirah Bourne and Dana Alison Levy, eds. |
| Radio Silence | Alice Oseman |
| Full Disclosure | Camryn Garrett |
| Black Birds in the Sky | Brandy Colbert |
| Red at the Bone | Jacqueline Woodson |
| A Lesson in Vengeance | Victoria Lee |
| The Belles | Dhonielle Clayton |
| The Degenerates | J. Albert Mann |
| Stars in Their Eyes | Jessica Walton and Aśka, ill. |
| Like a Love Story | Abdi Nazemian |
| Darius the Great Is Not Okay | Adib Khorram |
| A Sitting in St. James | Rita Williams-Garcia |
| Tyler Johnson Was Here | Jay Coles |
| The Sun Is Also a Star | Nicola Yoon |
| Lobizona | Romina Garber |
| The Sum of Us | Heather McGhee |
| The Last White Man | Mohsin Hamid |
| Banned Book Club | Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Hyung-Ju Ko, ill. |
| No Rules Tonight | Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada (author and ill.) |
| Banned Together | Ashley Hope Pérez, ed., and Debbie Fong, ill. |
| Gabi, A Girl in Pieces | Isabel Quintero |
| All You Have to Do | Autumn Allen |
| The Awakening of Malcolm X | Ilyasah Shabazz with Tiffany D. Jackson |
| Solito | Javier Zamora |
| Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions | Valeria Luiselli |
