Oh my! Actor, author, and activist George Takei has been named honorary chair of Banned Books Week, which will take place October 5–11, 2025.
Takei is an award-winning actor, outspoken civil rights activist, social media icon, and New York Times–bestselling author. After finding fame in the 1960s as Sulu on the beloved sci-fi television show “Star Trek,” Takei became a social media star, author, and advocate for several causes, including the rights of Japanese Americans and LGBTQIA+ individuals, later in life.
Takei’s award-winning New York Times-bestselling graphic memoir, “They Called Us Enemy” (Top Shelf Productions, 2019), uses both words and images to depict his childhood as one of 125,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in concentration camps by the U.S. government during World War II. The book has been targeted by censors multiple times since publication, most recently in Monroe County (Tenn.) School District, where it was among nearly 600 titles removed in an attempt to comply with the state’s vaguely-worded Age-Appropriate Materials Act.
In his latest graphic memoir, “It Rhymes With Takei” (Top Shelf Productions, 2025), Takei looks at his early life as a closeted gay man and his decision to come out at the age of 68. The book challenges “Americans to look to how past humanitarian injustices speak to current political debates” (Publishers Weekly). It has not appeared on banned books lists yet, but it will likely meet resistance in places where state and local laws target the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ materials in schools and libraries.
“Books are an essential foundation of democracy,” Takei said in a statement. “Our ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ depends on a public that is informed and empathetic, and books teach us both information and empathy. Yet the right to read is now under attack from school boards and politicians across America.”
“I’m proud to serve as honorary chair of Banned Books Week, because I remember all too well the lack of access to books and media that I needed growing up,” he continued. “First as a child in a barbed-wire prison camp, then as a gay young man in the closet, I felt confused and hungry for understanding about myself and the world around me. Now, as an author, I share my own stories so that new generations will be better informed about their history and themselves. Please stand with me in opposing censorship, so that we all can find ourselves—and each other—in books.”
Founded in 1982, Banned Books Week draws attention to attempts to remove books and other materials from libraries, schools, and bookstores. Now in its 43rd year, the theme for Banned Books Week 2025 is “Censorship is so 1984. Read for Your Rights.” George Orwell’s cautionary tale “1984” serves a prescient warning about the dangers of censorship, and this year’s theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.
Visit the ALA Banned Books Week website or BannedBooksWeek.org for information about events, ways to participate, and promotional materials. And be sure to follow Banned Books Week on social media (@BannedBooksWeek on Bluesky and Facebook, and @banned_books_week on Instagram) for the latest updates.
Since 2021, the American Library Association (ALA) and PEN America have tracked a sharp escalation in the attempts to ban books, with thousands of unique titles targeted annually. Books by or about LGBTQIA+ individuals and people of color make up nearly half of those titles. The majority of book censorship attempts now originate from organized movements. According to ALA, pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members, and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries in 2024.
By becoming an ALA Supporter, you can help us fight back against this evergrowing assault on the freedom to read. Please become a Supporter today. You can learn more below.
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Photo by Christopher Appoldt.
