Because knowledge is power, and everyone deserves to read without restrictions.
About
The Banned Book Boxes Project aims to promote intellectual freedom and literacy by installing small, publicly-accessible book-sharing boxes near Texas public high schools and other teen spots, starting with Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area high schools.
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These boxes are designated for and stocked with books that have been banned or challenged in Texas public schools, providing high school students with free access to diverse voices and life-changing stories that may otherwise be unavailable to them. The Banned Book Boxes Project functions as both a form of active resistance against the book-banning movement and a method of effectively increasing student access to diverse literature.
Book banning is on the rise across the nation, and restricted access to diverse literature harms students, librarians, educators, and anyone who cares deeply about justice, freedom, and literacy.
Here in Texas, the situation is especially dire: Texas ranked 2nd in the nation in the 2024-2025 school year of states with the most banned or challenged books, with 1,781 books banned -- that's nearly two thousand potentially life-changing books kept out of the hands and hearts of Texas students.
In 2025, Texas Senate Bill 13 (SB 13) was signed into law, and its mandates relating to library materials serve to further strip students of autonomy in freely choosing what they read. Book banning efforts, like SB 13, disempower students through suppression of diverse voices.
Students’ opportunities to learn about others’ differences or to see their own identities reflected back at them are stolen when they lose access to varied literature.
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