Best-selling authors unite against growing book ban threat

Some of the literary world’s biggest-selling authors and names — including Judy Blume, James Patterson, poet Amanda Gorman and civil rights activist Ruby Bridges — are joining forces and donating millions to fight book bans in Florida and across the country.

A group of 23 authors have donated more than $3.6 million to go toward PEN America, the free expression organization announced Wednesday. The money will go toward opening a center in Florida by the end of the year “to host public events, wage campaigns and empower Florida citizens to defend their basic freedoms,” PEN America said in a statement.

The effort was spearheaded by “The Lincoln Lawyer” author Michael Connelly, who along with his wife, Linda McCaleb, contributed $1 million to the group.

The move comes amid more than 3,300 book ban attempts in K-12 schools across the country last year and the removal of 1,557 individual titles, according to PEN America. More than 40 percent of the book ban attempts took place in 33 school districts in Florida, the group said.

Blume, a Florida resident, and several of the authors have been outspoken critics of book bans.

The “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” writer said on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “You and Me Both” iHeart podcast released Tuesday that the “book banning craze of the [1980s] has never gone away, but it hasn’t been so intrusive.”

“But today, what’s so scary is that it’s coming from government. It’s coming from state legislatures,” Blume told Clinton.

In a statement, Bridges, a children’s book author whose works have been banned, said, “My books are written to bring people together. Why would they be banned? But the real question is, why are we banning books at all? Surely, we are better than this.”

Thriller novelist Patterson praised PEN America in a statement, saying it “understands that our freedom to read is more fundamental than short-sighted politicians drawing attention to themselves on social media.”

The “Along Came a Spider” scribe called it courageous to “open an office here at the epicenter of so much of this cynical opportunism — my backyard, Florida.”

Other authors joining in on the push against book bans are: Nora Roberts, Mo Willems, Laurie Halse Anderson, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Jodi Picoult, Brad Meltzer, Reshma Saujani, David Baldacci, Daniel Handler, Nikki Grimes, David Levithan, Kathy Reichs, Todd Parr, Brit Bennett, Gillian Flynn, Richard Blanco, Khaled Hosseini and Casey McQuiston.