Banned Book Meetings

Join us for our Banned and Challenged Book Group Discussions this Year!
This year, two of our Banned and Challenged Book Group discussions will be hosted and facilitated by two of our Tikkun Olam Committees, who have chosen banned and challenged books that reflect the important work of their committees. All are welcome to join these discussions; you do not need to be a member of these committees in order to participate in the book discussions. Participants are encouraged to read each book in advance of each meeting. Save the dates and happy reading!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Monday, December 2, 7:00–9:30 p.m
Facilitated by Annie Tranquilli-Bausher
A coming of age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy, introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems but also with the suicide of his best friend.

The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Monday, January 13, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Facilitated by Marj Freeman, co-chair of the Mental Health Committee
A woman is diagnosed with a “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” in the 1880s. She is confined to rest, alone in a nursery with peeling yellow wallpaper. She records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper in a journal, but her quest to unlock the wallpaper’s mystery leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Monday, March 3, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Facilitated by Jeff Schwartz and Laura Stern, co-chairs of the CONECT committee
At the root of our interfaith work in CONECT is deepening our understanding of sexism and racism, along with working toward legal reforms and equality. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is one of the most frequently banned books and a perfect one for us to debate. Should it be banned for its depiction of violence and incest? Or should it be read as a classic as are other novels by Toni Morrison, who later earned the Nobel Prize?

*#6 on the American Library Association’s 2023 Most Banned and Challenged Book List

Sold by Patricia McCormick
Monday, April 28, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Facilitated by Susan Walden
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape. Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives, but triumphs.
Banned Book Meetings

*#10 on the ALA’s 2023 Most Banned and Challenged Book List