In recognition of Banned Books Week, DC Public Library welcomes George M. Johnson, award-winning author of “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “We Are Not Broken.”
The DC Public Library is thrilled to host author and activist George M. Johnson, honorary chair of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week initiative. Johnson’s memoir “All Boys Aren’t Blue” has become one of the country’s most banned library books.
George will discuss their work and the recent trend of book banning taking place nationwide.
100 Signed copies of “All Boys Aren’t Blue” book will be available after the conversation thanks to the DC Public Library Foundation and Mahogany Bookstore.
About the Author
George M. Johnson is an Award-Winning Black Non-Binary writer, author, and activist in the NYC area. They’ve written for major outlets, including Teen Vogue, Entertainment Tonight, NBC, The Root, Buzzfeed, Essence, Ebony, THEM, and The Grio.
They have also served as Guest Editor for BET.com’s Pride month. They were awarded the 2019 Salute to Excellence Award by the National Association of Black Journalists for their article “When Racism Anchored your Health” in Vice Magazine and named The Root 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2020.
They are the author of the New York Times Bestselling Young Adult Memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue discussing their adolescence growing up as a young Black Queer boy in New Jersey through a series of powerful essays. The book is a Teen Vogue Recommended Read, a Buzzfeed Recommended Read, a People Magazine Best Book of the Summer, a New York Library Best Book, and a Chicago Public Library Best Book. It was optioned for Television by Gabrielle Union’s “I’ll Have Another Productions” and Sony TV.
George serves as the executive producer and co-writer for the upcoming series based on their real-life college experience at the HBCU Virginia Union University.
George’s memoir We Are Not Broken is the vibrant story of George, Garrett, Rall, and Rasul — four children raised by Nanny, their fiercely devoted grandmother. Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin, calls the book “a deeply impactful account of intergenerational love that reveals the power of accepting young people exactly as they are while encouraging them to be ever more themselves.”
Join Banned Books Week Honorary Chair George M. Johnson for an intimate conversation about censorship and how it impacts readers, especially young adults. Johnson will discuss the censorship of their critically acclaimed bestselling novel All Boys Aren’t Blue, which was the third title on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021, and the ongoing attacks on books and information related to LGBTQ+ identity. This one-on-one conversation will be led by Freedom to Read Foundation President and librarian Peter Coyl and include a short Q&A.
This event will stream LIVE on the Banned Books Week Facebook page on September 20 at 1:00 p.m. EDT: @BannedBooksWeek
About George M. Johnson
George M. Johnson (they/them) is a writer and activist based in New York. They have written on race, gender, sex, and culture for Essence, the Advocate, BuzzFeed News, Teen Vogue, and more than forty other national publications. George has appeared on BuzzFeed’s AM2DM as well as on MSNBC. All Boys Aren’t Blue is their debut, and was an Amazon Best Book of the Year, an Indie Bestseller, a People Magazine Best Book of the Year, and optioned for television by Gabrielle Union. The New York Times called it “an exuberant, unapologetic memoir infused with a deep but cleareyed love for its subjects.
Peter Coyl (he/him) is the Library Director & CEO of the Sacramento Public Library. He is also the President of the Freedom to Read Foundation and serves on ALA Council representing the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. He is a member of the American Library Assocations’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, and served as Chair of the Stonewall Book Awards Committee and as Chair of ALA’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (now the Rainbow Round Table), and as a member of the Public Library Assocaitions’s Task Force on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice.
The Banned Books Week Coalition is proud to announce that George M. Johnson has been named Honorary Chair for Banned Books Week 2022. The critically acclaimed—and frequently banned—author will lead the weeklong event, which brings awareness to the harms of censorship September 18–24, 2022.
George M. Johnson (they/them) is an award-winning Black nonbinary activist and author of TheNew York Times–bestselling young adult memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) and We Are Not Broken (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2021). All Boys Aren’t Blue was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library, and it has been optioned for television by Gabrielle Union’s I’ll Have Another Productions. Johnson has written for several major outlets, including Teen Vogue, VICE, Entertainment Tonight, NBC, The Root, Buzzfeed, Essence, and TheGrio.
All Boys Aren’t Blue was the third title on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021, an annual list released during National Library Week. Like most of the books on the list, All Boys Aren’t Blue was challenged for LGBTQ+ content, which is disproportionately targeted for censorship alongside works dealing with racism and racial identity. Several state legislatures have passed or are considering laws that would limit instruction related to LGBTQ+ identity and race. Johnson and many other authors addressing these issues are impacted, and students are harmed by the resulting censorship.
“Being the honorary chair for Banned Books Week is important to me because I know what it is like to grow up and not have stories about my own lived experience, nor the truth outside of an ahistorical context,” says Johnson. “This is a fight for the truth that has always existed even if it rarely gets told. When the youth are empowered with stories about the experiences of others, they become adults who understand the necessity for equity and equality and have the tools to build a world the likes of which we have never seen.”
Since it was founded in 1982, Banned Books Week has drawn attention to the attempts to remove books and other materials from libraries, schools, and bookstores. Banned Books Week 2022 has the theme “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” All readers deserve to see themselves reflected in the books available to them, and people better understand themselves and each other when given the opportunity to choose what they want to read without restriction. This is particularly true for young people, who are most impacted by censorship. The theme image of caged birds reminds us that censorship isolates us from information and from each other.
Join Honorary Chair George M. Johnson and the Banned Books Week Coalition in recognizing the ways in which books unite us during Banned Books Week, September 18–24, 2022!
George M. Johnson is a writer and activist based in New York. They have written on race, gender, sex, and culture for Essence, the Advocate, BuzzFeed News, Teen Vogue, and more than 40 other national publications. George has appeared on BuzzFeed’s AM2DM as well as on MSNBC. All Boys Aren’t Blue is their debut and was an Amazon Best Book of the Year, an Indie Bestseller, a People Magazine Best Book of the Year, and optioned for television by Gabrielle Union. The New York Times called it “an exuberant, unapologetic memoir infused with a deep but cleareyed love for its subjects.”
The Banned Books Week Coalition is an international alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The Coalition seeks to engage various communities and inspire participation in Banned Books Week through education, advocacy, and the creation of programming about the problem of book censorship.
