I’m gonna cut to the chase: read banned books, and fight censorship.
My employer Penguin Random House (PRH) was named as a TIME’s most influential company of 2025 for battling book bans and protecting the freedom to read. It’s honestly the topmost reason I’m grateful to work at PRH, as working for a publisher that has values that align with my own (and take action on those values) is crucial to me.
PRH defends books in court, partners with organizations like ALA to fight against censorship, and supports authors and teachers and librarians.
PRH’s work is imperative as book bans are on the rise.
In the 2024-2025 school year, PEN America recorded 6,870 instances of book bans affecting nearly 4,000 titles. As PEN America states, “It is the books that have long fought for a place on the shelf that are being targeted. Books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history.”
With that said, I highly recommend these 3 books published by PRH that I own and loved, which happen to have been challenged or banned:
- Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, a “compelling story about two remarkable young people”
- Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, a “genre-defying novel” that “explores themes of identity and justice”
- Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, a “brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship”
Green has said this powerful statement about book bans:
I think efforts to restrict stories are often efforts to restrict empathy.
Though I have many PRH banned books on my tbr, I asked my friends over on Instagram last month which book I should read during Banned Books Week.
I’m happy to now share my 5 star review for my friends’ pick, We Are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez.
Read my review below, which is also up on The StoryGraph!
1. We Are Not from Here
By Jenny Torres Sanchez
A poignant novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border, inspired by current events.
Pulga has his dreams.
Chico has his grief.
Pequeña has her pride.
And these three teens have one another. But none of them have illusions about the town they’ve grown up in and the dangers that surround them. Even with the love of family, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the trio knows they have no choice but to run: from their country, from their families, from their beloved home.
Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico, they follow the route of La Bestia, the perilous train system that might deliver them to a better life—if they are lucky enough to survive the journey. With nothing but the bags on their backs and desperation drumming through their hearts, Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña know there is no turning back, despite the unknown that awaits them. And the darkness that seems to follow wherever they go.
In this striking portrait of lives torn apart, the plight of migrants at the U.S. southern border is brought to light through poignant, vivid storytelling. An epic journey of danger, resilience, heartache, and hope.
Review:
★★★★★
This book was published in 2021 and praised as “timely.” Years later, it’s heartbreaking that it’s even more “timely” and necessary today.
We should not live in a world that not only accepts but incites this violence, this cruelty, this death, this disregard of humanity. We should not live in a world with headlines about ICE’s powerful surveillance, Trump’s administration considering warehouses to hold immigrants, and ICE’s recent hostile arrest in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. We should not live in a world where this book is so necessary, but we do.
Though heartbreaking, I’m glad this book exits. It’s a protest. It’s a call to action.
Not only does this book confront the realities and dangers that migrants face, it’s well written, well crafted, and poetic at times. Its complex main characters—Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña—read as flawed, real teens. All you want for these characters is to see them safe and happy. That’s all these characters want: a better life with opportunity.
And so do people migrating to the States.
Immigrants make America great. Abolish ICE.
Quotes:
“I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the razors and the switchblades are in the same area of the pharmacy as the birth control and morning-after pills.”
“We understand danger. We grew up with danger. But this danger feels different.”
“We are to Mexico what Mexico is to the States.”
“I think of how we can’t trust anyone, but how the only way to do this trip is by sometimes putting your life in a stranger’s hands.”
“We are luchadores. We are fighters. We are those who dare to try against impossible odds.”
“Feeling too much will kill me, I tell my heart.
Not feeling anything will, too, it says.”
“I don’t know if I believe in God. Because if God exists, and if he sees everything, why doesn’t he see us?
Why?
And why do we have to die to finally, finally be safe?
And how can the world hate us for trying to survive?
And how are we only reunited with our mothers in death?
But these are questions no one ever wants to answer. Or maybe there are no answers. Not really.”
“We stay in our filthy clothes, we sleep on filthy floors, we breathe rotting air.
But we are the ones rotting. We are like forgotten overripe fruit, left to soften and mold and leak. Left to crust over and turn to nothing. If they could, I think they would just throw us out in plastic bags.”
Let me know which banned book you think I should prioritize reading next!
Morgan Vega 