Quad Cities Celebrates Banned Books Week With Two Main Events Monday
Quad Cities fans of banned books will have a tough choice to make on Monday, Oct. 5, as two main events will celebrate Banned Books Week and the freedom to read, in Rock Island and Bettendorf.
A nationally-known man who fought for the freedom to read nearly 50 years ago is sharing his story with QC readers in Bettendorf Monday night, a year after reading at the Rock Island banned-books event.
On Monday, Oct. 5, from 6:30-7:30 p.m., the Bettendorf Public Library will host a Freedom to Read Celebration that includes the screening of a short film about the landmark Supreme Court case Board of Education v. Pico, followed by a panel discussion with Steven Pico himself.
In 1977, at age 17, Pico became one of the founders of the freedom to read movement when he and four other teens sued their school district in Long Island, New York, for banning 11 books from their school libraries. The case, Board of Education v. Pico, became a landmark case in the fight against book censorship when the Supreme Court sided with the students and ruled in a 5-4 decision that “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.”
Inspired by this case, Bettendorf Middle School student Adrian Gillette last year created a documentary, “FREADOM on Trial: Rights and Responsibilities in Island Trees Board of Education v. Pico.” (You can watch it HERE.)
The 10-minute film won 3rd place at the National History Day contest in 2025 and was also honored with the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival Collins Road Theatres Scholarship in 2026.
After a screening of the documentary, Bettendorf Library Director Jillian Aschliman will host a panel discussion with Pico, along with Iowa School Librarian Association President-Elect Linda Smithson and Iowa Library Association President Brittany Jacobs. To submit a question for the panel ahead of time, visit www.bettendorflibrary.com/event/17330199.
No registration is required to attend this free event.
Part of national Banned Books Week, the Banned Books Read Out is a Rock Island library tradition for over 20 years, and the problem seems to be getting worse, library director Angela Campbell said last year. She is also vice president of the Midwest Writing Center (based at the Rock Island Downtown Library), which presents the annual reading of banned or challenged authors.
Campbell last October read from a children’s book a parent complained about, called “Fred Gets Dressed” (2021) by Peter Brown. The book is about a boy who loves to “romp through the house naked and wild and free” and tries on his mother’s clothes. Brown, a bestselling author of children’s books, is a straight, cisgender man who wrote the book about an experience he had as a little boy.
“Controlling what other people can read, that’s downright un-American,” Campbell said. “I think everyone needs to lighten up and let children be whoever they’re going to be, and let them read what they want to read. Everything is going to be fine.”
Rock Island library event
Midwest Writing Center executive director Ryan Collins said at last year’s event (at Rock Island Public Library’s Watts-Midtown Branch) that censorship is on the rise worldwide, including murdering of journalists in places like Gaza and removing information from the Smithsonian website.
“All book banners and censors, to my mind, have two things in common – they’re selfish and they’re cowards,” he said. “It’s important to remember that. We’re all afraid, we all have fears. But our fears do not give us license to tell other people what to read, and how to deal with their problems.”
This Monday, at the Watts-Midtown branch (2715 30th St.) of the Rock Island Public Library, doors open at 5:30 p.m., and the banned-books reading starts at 6 p.m. This event is a long tradition of gathering community leaders (like the folks at The Atlas Collective – Brews & Books, cast of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre upcoming show “No Exit,” local writers, librarians) to talk about their favorite banned books, why those books were banned, and reading passages from them.
This year’s theme is “Let Books Be, Protect the Freedom to Read.” The event features brief readings by local volunteers from books, plays, and other works challenged for their right to remain widely available to the public. Attendees may come to read or just listen. The event also includes free drawings for buttons and other items.
Fourteen readers are already scheduled, including the cast of “No Exit” coming soon at Playcrafters, as well as local booksellers, writers, librarians, and community organizations. Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play “No Exit” has faced protests, cancellations, and student pushback at various academic and community theater productions over concerns regarding its psychological intensity and theme.
To sign up to read from your favorite banned or challenged book, contact Midwest Writing Center executive director Ryan Collins, at the Midwest Writing Center, (309) 732-7330.
Banned Books Week is Oct. 4-10, 2026. During National Library Week, American Library Association released the list of the Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2025 as part of the State of America’s Libraries Report. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, only five titles behind the record set in 2023.
Nearly 92% of 2025 book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, and decision makers, and 5,668 titles were banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged), with access to an additional 920 books restricted. This is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship since OIF began compiling censorship data in 1990.
In a report (“The Normalization of Book Banning”), PEN America found 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts in the 2024-2025 school year. PEN America works to promote freedom of expression in the literary space.
Florida is top book-banning state
According to the report, which was released ahead of Banned Books Week, Florida had the highest number of book bans with 2,304, followed by Texas with 1,781 bans and Tennessee with 1,622.
“In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common,” PEN America said. “Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.
“The book bans that have accumulated in the past four years are unprecedented and undeniable,” the report said.
According to the American Library Association, the following books appear consistently at the top of the ALA’s banned and challenged books lists over the past three years:
- “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe
- “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson
- “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
- “Flamer” by Mike Curato
- “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson
- “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
- “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
- “1984” by George Orwell
- “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
- “Maus by Art Spiegelman
Last year’s Rock Island event featured 12 readers presenting work by a variety of authors from Shel Silverstein to Art Cullen, and Mark Twain to Ellen Hopkins, including one special guest from New York – free speech pioneer Steven Pico.
For more information about Monday’s event, contact the Midwest Writing Center or Rock Island Public Library via their websites. The library may be contacted at 309-732-READ and the Midwest Writing Center at 309-732-7330.
The event is free and open to the public. While the event is open to all, attendees should be aware that some readings will include mature content.
In 1977, Pico became one of the founders of the freedom to read movement in the U.S. by positing that censorship of literature violated the First Amendment and by serving as the plaintiff in the critically-important case Board of Education v. Pico — the first lawsuit of its kind.
When he announced his legal challenge to the removal and banning of 11 books from the public schools in Island Trees, N.Y. (a New York City suburb), Pico warned all Americans about the dangers posed by censors who sought to deny and rewrite history. He emphasized that book banners seemed particularly motivated to silence the voices of authors from the African-American, Jewish, LGBTQ+, Native American, Hispanic, Asian and other communities.
For the past 50 years, Pico has spoken out nationwide (including last October at Augustana College), and organized at the community and state level, about the importance of defending our Constitutional liberties. After receiving his B.A. from Haverford, Steven worked for three years at the non-profit National Coalition Against Censorship, during which time he worked with the Legislature in his home state to pass a law protecting the privacy rights of all library users in New York State.
The American Library Association offers a variety of free downloads, resources, and materials to support Banned Books Week activities at www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/banned. To learn how to fight against book bans, click HERE.
