Banned Book Club
stay curious, be open & keep waking up...
Join us as we read books that have been banned or removed in U.S. schools and libraries for challenging dominant narratives around race, gender, identity, and power. A monthly gathering that invites deeper listening, reflection, and honest conversation through curated excerpts and shared context. This space bridges reading and real-world awareness, helping us notice inherited narratives, sit with discomfort, and consider whose voices have been pushed aside. Open to all genders and races, the club is rooted in curiosity over certainty, connection over debate, and the belief that thoughtful stories can gently shift how we see ourselves and the world.
“This podcast is exactly what the world needs right now. We all need to wake up the the history of systems of injustice in this world that we and our ancestors have helped to create and uphold. I think books are one of the best ways of waking up in this way: they allow us to put on someone else’s shoes for a while and walk around. Through this process we build empathy and understand another persons’s experience of the world.”
Becky Hope
'Banned Book' Becky
The millennial moderator of the Banned Books Club. Becky is a self-proclaimed, Library-card-carrying bibliophile. She has spent her entire life lost in a book—whether at a coffee shop, on her couch on a rainy Portland day, up a tree, in a park, for work, or pleasure. Becky has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature, a Master’s Degree in Popular Literature, and a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education in which, to our subject at hand, she completed her research on the subject of banned and challenged books. Becky is a fierce advocate for literacy and reading, and especially against censorship of any sort. She has worked as a high school English teacher, a college literature and writing professor, and at many bookstores. In other words, books are her life.
Becky is also an avid student of culture and loves to travel and meet new people whose experiences have been different from her own. Becky has lived all over California; Ireland; and now calls Portland, Oregon home. She can most weekends be found at the local independent movie theatre or record store before returning to her books.
Our Past Banned Book Clubs
February
The Book of Unknown Americans
by Cristina Henríquez.
A novel that centers the lived experiences of immigrants whose stories are often flattened, politicized, or erased.
March
Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo
A novel-in-verse about a Dominican-American teenage girl finding her voice through poetry.
April
The Hate You Give
by Angie Thomas
A novel following a Black teenage girl who witnesses police violence and must decide when and how to speak up.
May
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
A landmark novel about a young Black girl growing up under the weight of white beauty standards and societal neglect.