We read banned books. We want you to read banned books, too.
Donate TodayAnnie’s Foundation is run by six suburban moms who got fed up with well-funded national groups leading local efforts to ban books from our libraries.
We decided to fight back by giving back. Through the power of this grassroots effort, Annie’s Foundation has given away over 11,500 banned and challenged books to Iowans across the state.
Our Mission
To ensure members of our community have unhindered access to books with characters and subjects that reflect the diversity and complexity of the world around them.
Statement on the Trump Administration’s January 20, 2025
Executive Order Targeting Transgender, Intersex, Nonbinary, and
Gender-Nonconforming Americans
On January 20, the White House issued an executive order stating that the United States government will only recognize two sexes, male and female, as defined “at conception.” The ripple effect of this order will undoubtedly affect public schools, public libraries, and the literature that is shelved in both.
Among the many harms it causes, the order targeting transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming Americans threatens unconstitutional censorship that could have a grave impact on literature for years to come. In dismissing trans, intersex, and nonbinary identities, the order blacklists LGBTQIA+ literature and invites the government to dictate the perspectives, beliefs, and identities that can exist in public forums receiving federal funding, amounting to financial coercion
through the arbitrary withholding of funds. This censorship may begin with LGBTQIA+ perspectives, but it will not end there: allowing the government to censor one group erodes the First Amendment rights of all Americans, creating a precedent for silencing dissenting voices.
If allowed to stand, the order will create new funding requirements imposed not only on federal entities, but private citizens and institutions who contract with them. Those requirements can and will be manipulated to dictate speech. The broader chilling effect on literature could be even harder to undo. Writers rely on funding from sources like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the state-level institutions they fund.
Trans, nonbinary, and intersex experience is vastly underrepresented in literature but disproportionately targeted by bans. During the 2022-2023 school year, 30% of books banned included LGBTQIA+ characters or themes. Such censorship robs us of perspectives that enrich the American story. Though the executive order in question tries to paint LGBTQIA+ people and allies as bullies enforcing their perspective on others through “legal and other socially coercive means,” that’s exactly what the order itself does, just as book-banning pressure groups have done since 2020 in school boards and libraries around the country. The fate of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people is not a political ideology, it’s a matter of human rights, civil rights, and freedom of expression. Government erosion of those rights should concern all Americans, regardless of their investment in LGBTQIA+ literature specifically.
This executive order is censorship, pure and simple, and it has no place in a free society. It must be rescinded or stayed as soon as possible, and at the latest, before the earliest implementation deadline, February 19, 2025. Financially blacklisting trans, intersex, and non-binary perspectives will rob us of a vital literature yet to be written while insulting the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. This return to McCarthyism by other means is a leap backwards to a grim chapter of American history.
Sincerely, the undersigned,
- American Booksellers Association
- American Booksellers for Free Expression
- Andrews McMeel
- Annie’s Foundation
- Audio Publishers Association
- Authors Against Book Bans
- Berry Powell Press
- Cardinal Rule Press
- Charlesbridge Publishing
- Chestnut Publishing House
- Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
- Deborah Sloan and Company and Kidsbuzz
- Developmental Texts
- Empowering Latino Futures
- EveryLibrary
- Firewater Media Group
- Florida Freedom to Read Project
- Foreword Reviews
- Freedom to Read Project
- Gryphon Publishing Consulting, LLC
- Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)
- IngramSpark
- Judging by the Cover: A Bookstore
- Lafayette Citizens Against Censorship
- Lambda Literary
- Latino 247 Media Group
- Lee Wind, author
- Levine Querido
- Library Futures
- Livingston Parish Library Alliance
- Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship
- Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
- The National Book Critics Circle
- National Coalition Against Censorship
- NorthSouth Books
- Nosy Crow
- Patagonia
- Publishers and Writers of San Diego and Orange County
- PEN America
- PFLAG Fresno
- PubWest
- Rattling Good Yarns Press
- Read Freely Alabama
- Red Comet Press LLC
- Rutherford County Library Alliance
- Sara Paretsky, Writer
- SCBWI
- SEAT
- SparkPoint Studio
- St Tammany Library Alliance
- Stone Bridge Press
- Texas Freedom to Read Project
- Walker Books Group for Candlewick Press, Holiday House Books, and Peachtree Publishing
Book Wishlist
Don’t want to make a monetary donation? Consider donating a book instead!
We’ve partnered with Storyhouse Bookpub, a local, woman-owned bookstore, to offer a Wish List. You can purchase a book from their website on Bookshop.org and the books will be shipped directly to Annie’s Foundation! Your purchase gets banned and challenged books in the hands of your community while also supporting a small, locally-owned business.
All Boy's Aren't Blue
By George M. Johnson
All Boys Aren't Blue is a 2020 memoir and manifesto by George M. Johnson that is structured as a series of essays and letters. It is a firsthand account of Johnson's experiences growing up Black and queer in Plainsfield, New Jersey and Virginia, and how these experiences have shaped their identity.
And Tango Makes Three
By Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell
This book tells the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who create a family together. With the help of the zookeeper, Mr. Gramsay, Roy and Silo are given an egg which they help hatch.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
By Maya Angelou
The book is a coming-of-age story that details Angelou's experiences as an African American girl in the segregated South, including racism, sexual abuse, and the challenges of growing up during a tumultuous time in American history.
Neither
By Arlie Anderson
While half the world is made up of birds and the other half rabbits, “Neither” is a creative mixture of both. But instead of being embraced, Neither is cast away from the “Land of This and That” for not looking like the others.
Nivhil Out Loud
By Maulik Pancholy
This is a coming-of-age story. Nikhil is cast in the lead role in the school musical and comes out as gay to a newspaper reporter (interviewing him about his role). With permission, the reporter prints Nikhil's sexuality in the story. Nikhil faces various reactions from friends and family.
The Bluest Eye
By Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a 1970 novel that tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl who grows up in Lorain, Ohio during the Great Depression. The novel explores themes of race, class, and beauty standards.
The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School
By Sonora Reyes
A young adult novel about a queer Mexican American girl named Yamilet Flores who attends a mostly white, wealthy Catholic high school. Yamilet's crush on Bo, along with her ex-best friend outing her, tests her resolve to stay in the closet.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford, a Black woman in the rural American South who grows from a teenager into a woman who finds her own voice and destiny. The novel explores themes of love, independence, identity, power, inequality, and the importance of having a voice.
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