{"id":302674,"date":"2026-10-08T23:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T23:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/302674\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T23:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T23:16:14","slug":"philly-high-schoolers-mark-banned-books-week-by-giving-away-banned-books-at-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/302674\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly high schoolers mark \u2018Banned Books Week\u2019 by giving away \u2018banned\u2019 books at City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Philadelphia high school students marked \u2018Banned Books Week\u2019 on Thursday by giving some of them away at City Hall.<\/p>\n<p>Students from George Washington High School stood behind a table of banned books at City Hall, offering free copies to passersby. English teacher Emily Cohen said some people were taken aback by the titles they saw on the table.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was listening to a gentleman say, &#8216;Bridge to Terabithia\u2019 was banned? They tried to ban \u2018Captain Underpants\u2019? \u2018Where the Wild Things Are\u2019? &#8216;There&#8217;s this element of shock and surprise that we honestly want,&#8221; said Cohen.<\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia School District does not ban books, but the writers group PEN America said <a href=\"https:\/\/pen.org\/report\/book-bans-spotlight-2026\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">nearly 12,000 books have been prohibited<\/a> from U.S. school shelves, mostly in Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Mason Anchia said people passing by the table seemed to appreciate the banned book giveaway.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For them to come here and grab a book from us, to look at what books we have, what books were banned, it&#8217;s just informative for a lot of people here,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sophomore Jaylanie Antonio said she was moved when she read \u201cOf Mice and Men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was enthralled with the characters that they had,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd books like that are being banned and taken away from students, it&#8217;s just heartbreaking to see that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cohen said parents should determine which books are age-appropriate for their children.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think a kindergarten student could read \u2018Fahrenheit 451.\u2019 But in high school, they should absolutely read that,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The students had more than 350 banned books to give away, donated through teachers&#8217; Donors Choose pages. In addition to handing out banned books, the students also offered library card applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Philadelphia high school students marked \u2018Banned Books Week\u2019 on Thursday by giving some of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116751,8090,8003,227,69,71,70,736,1998],"class_list":["post-302674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-banned-books","tag-books","tag-city-hall","tag-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-reading","tag-school-district-of-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}