Dive into our 2024-25 Banned Books Season! We can’t wait for you to embark on this adventure with us. Every title this season features a book that has been banned somewhere in the world. Scroll down for an overview of all the selections, including content heads-up so you can choose to experience the book (or not!) with confidence. If we missed something, please send us a message and we’ll look into addressing it as soon as we can.
This season’s choices were especially challenging! There are so many important books out there in the world that deserve a good read with an open mind, but there are other forces working against keeping those books available to all! We are happy to share our season choices with all of you. Let’s get reading!
You can purchase a season venue subscription for our Bushwick Book Club performances with our season partners Hugo House and Town Hall Seattle | Season Subscription coming soon!
Please consider buying your Bushwick choices with a local bookstore.
SEPT 28 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada
Combining the propulsive energy of manga with the sobering weight of history, Sook’s graphic memoir brings to life the turbulent journey of a group of readers in 1980s South Korea who risk everything for the right to read. One school district in Florida was so impressed with Banned Book Club that they pulled it from the shelves in 2023. Read it while you can.
“The messages of hope are universal.” — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“It’s hard to imagine a world where Banned Book Club could be more relevant than it is right now.” — A.V. Club
Heads up: Banned Book Club is set during the fascist era of South Korea’s Fifth Republic, rife with political corruption and the loss of human rights.
OCT 19 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
After inspiring nightmares—and controversy—for generations, the infamously eerie tales of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark will now ooze, crawl, and haunt their way to the Bushwick stage. Crowned by the American Library Association as the most challenged book series of the 90s, Scary Stories is one hell of a good time. We’ll leave the nightlight on for you.
“A wonderful collection of tales that range from creepy to silly to haunting. Gammell’s drawings add just the right touch.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Schwartz managed to marry the old school terror of classic ghost stories with the all-too-real terror that comes with living in the modern world.” — Bustle
Heads up: Schwarz’s folktale retellings gave 90s kids nightmares for good reason: ghosts, ghouls, murder, and the macabre all abound, brought to life by Stephen Gammell’s brilliantly grotesque illustrations.
NOV 9 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Thanks to the support of The Seattle Public Library foundation
The year is 2024. The world teeters on the edge of chaos. An authoritarian president looms. Octavia Butler’s astonishingly prescient novel Parable of the Sower weaves together urgent themes of hope, resilience, societal change, and individual perseverance. Texas and Missouri are among the states who found Butler’s stark warning too potent for library shelves.
“[Parable of the Sower] succeeds on multiple levels. A gripping tale of survival and a poignant account of growing up sane in a disintegrating world.” — New York Times
“This was a cautionary tale, although people have told me it was prophecy. All I have to say to that is: I certainly hope not.” — Octavia Butler
Heads up: Butler pulls no punches in detailing her dystopian landscape—brace yourself for many forms of human cruelty, including racism, murder, and sexual assault.
DEC 7 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by 3 local authors…..
Jan 11 ⎮ Town Hall Seattle
Original music inspired by Maus by Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus has resonated with readers for years as a powerful graphic memoir of the Holocaust. Told through a son’s retelling of his father’s harrowing experiences, Maus captures raw emotion and historical depth in every panel—so much so that the Tennessee School Board removed it from shelves in 2022.
“Full of hard-earned humor and pathos, Maus takes your breath away with its stunning visual style, reminding us that while we can never forget the Holocaust, we may need new ways to remember.” —Kirkus
“Some works of art change their medium forever, and this graphic memoir is a sterling example of a book that upended all expectations about what comics could accomplish.” —Common Sense Media
Heads up: an unflinching chronicle of the Holocaust, Maus features Nazi imagery, antisemitism, and the accompanying horrors of genocide.
FEB 8 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by various banned picture books
A favorite target of would-be censors nationwide—even the ever-charming Where’s Waldo? was one of the ALA’s 100 most challenged books of the 90s— picture books like And Tango Makes Three and They Call us Enemy introduce ideas about tolerance, self-expression, and difference with simple language and exuberant illustration. Circle up for uncensored story time!
MAR 8 | Hugo House | MEMBERS ONLY EVENT! (Become a MEMBER today to reserve your seat)
Tickets FREE with purchase of a membership!
Original music inspired by Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Could we have had a Banned Books Season without one of the most famous books about burning books? We think not. This classic book about censorship has been banned throughout the years for a variety of reasons, mostly because of “dirty talk”. We are ready to light some inspirational fires through song for all of our members!
“Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.” – Goodreads
Heads up: there are many references to drug use, a frightening look into how television may be taking over our lives… and there will be some “dirty language”
APR 12 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
Informed by years of research and banned in Arizona upon publication, Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway paints a harrowing portrait of America’s boiling border deserts and the determined migrants who attempt the crossing. So effective was Urrea’s research, in fact, that it became the first book banned in Arizona for being “satanic” and “un-American.”
“A horrendous story told with bitter skill, highlighting the whole sordid, greedy mess that attends illegal broader crossings.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary account of the absurdity of U.S. border policy.” —The Atlantic
Heads up: detailed descriptions of death from heat and starvation, and a disturbing portrait of the human negligence, cynicism and opportunism that fuels this tragic cycle.
MAY 10 | Hugo House
Original music inspired by Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Perhaps no single author has generated more controversy in recent years than Ibram X. Kendi, whose Stamped from the Beginning—published in versions for both adults and youth—outlines the history of racist ideas in America with devastating clarity. In 2020, Stamped itself was stamped as the second-most challenged book in America.
“… engrossing and relentless… The greatest service Kendi and provide[s] is the ruthless prosecution of American ideas about race for their tensions, contradictions and unintended consequences.” —The Washington Post
Heads up: by covering the roots of America’s systemic racism, be ready for hard and necessary conversations about slavery and a wide spectrum racial violence and hatred.
JUNE 14 | Town Hall Seattle
Original music inspired by Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and Sex is a Funny Word by by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth
We’ve got your summer soundtrack covered! Celebrating two of the most challenged books in America, Bushwick goes big in June with a kaleidoscopic double-bill about love and self-discovery. Gender Queer is the reigning banned book champ, sitting atop ALA’s list of most challenged books in 2023. Sex is a Funny Word has been banned and challenged for just about every topic it covers: sexual identity, sexual expression, and all of the weird, wonderful body parts that make us who we are.
“Gender Queer serves multiple purposes…Telling the world all your most excruciating personal secrets while also making them aesthetically pleasing and readable certainly seems like it should be a simple enough task, but it’s harder than you might think.” —The Comics Journal
“My hope is that we’re creating a world where there’s no shame for our kids to shed anymore. Sex Is a Funny Word is timely, important and engaging—and, as many parents will agree, a step in the right direction.” —Today’s Parent
Heads up: Gender Queer dives into gender dysphoria and shares some mild depictions of sexual acts; Sex is a Funny Word has youth-friendly illustrations of body parts.
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