Every year, librarians, teachers, and authors across the country come together to celebrate Banned Books Week and support the First Amendment and students' right to read. Books may make the national banned book list, or be banned in certain libraries or schools, for any number of reasons, from underage drinking to religious viewpoints.

This year, Michaela Keating of Merrimack's McQuade Library reached out to myself and Rachel MacKelcan, who host a weekly radio show on the school's station. Michaela, who heard about us from an article that Rachel wrote in the English department's annual Broadsheet, asked us if we wanted to participate in Banned Books Week 2016, and we were honored to accept.

Typically, our show "Bookish" covers one book per week. I create a playlist of songs that relate to the book, and Rachel and I discuss it. Our first show was in October 2015, the first week WMCK was on air. Not only were we happy to participate in Banned Books week for the recognition, but also because it's a cause we both feel passionately about and knew a lot of our friends feel the same way.

Our special Banned Books Week segment took place on September 29, our second show of the semester. We selected books that we covered last year and a few that we plan to cover this year and chose one song from each playlist. We started with "Blackbird" by The Beatles, a song from the playlist for both Go Set A Watchman andTo Kill A Mockingbird, which we used for our first and last shows last year. Though Go Set A Watchman hasn't been subject to the same scrutiny as its predecessor, we felt it was important to mention them together as they both deal with issues of race, sexism, and growing up. We also covered The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ("When We Were Young" by Adele), Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz ("Landslide," Fleetwood Mac), The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold ("Brick By Boring Brick," Paramore), The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth ("Hey Darling," Sleater-Kinney), and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith ("Pretty Funny" from Dogfight).

The thing about banned and challenged books is that they often have deeper messages to share beyond any content that might be deemed inappropriate. We all know To Kill A Mockingbird is a touching story and makes connections to how we live in our world--how we coexist with others who may be different from us.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe are both controversial in schools because they both feature gay protagonists. Aristotle comes to grips with his sexuality and his feelings for his best friend Dante, while Cameron Post realizes very early on in her life that she likes girls, and when she's in high school her conservative aunt sends her to conversion therapy, where she and others are emotionally abused. One of the people in the facility with her actually tries to commit suicide after a particularly grueling therapy session. Many queer authors have remarked that they wish they had had young adult novels like these when they were growing up.

It's one thing to not want a young child to read graphic scenes or books about drinking alcohol, but high school students have probably already encountered situations where all the things mentioned in banned books have come up; they may even have some questions about it themselves. Keeping them away from books that may help them come to grips with the world around them is one of the easiest ways to hurt your child. As we said on the show, "Your kid is going to meet someone in their life--through work or school or something--who is black, who is gay, who is transgender. You can't keep them sheltered from that. And if your child is gay and you're keeping these books from them, you're not protecting them, you're the one hurting them." Additionally, if it is a parents' choice to keep their child from reading certain books, it's not their job to also enforce that on other students.

There are always going to be books that people will want to burn. Harry Potter has been banned. Twilight has been banned. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret has been banned. Even the most innocuous or classic of books can be up for debate because they challenge preconceived notions of the world, and bring up important topics that many would prefer not to discuss., from racism to menstruation to sexuality to religion to war. But we owe it to those younger than us to discuss these things. Bad things will always be out there, but so will good things. People may make mistakes or do bad things, but seeing characters work out their problems and fix their mistakes helps readers learn how to do the same.

Maybe they people who banned books are really afraid of the ideas in them--but you can't kill ideas. The messages of hope, of inclusion, of love without boundaries that are found in so many of these books remain very much alive. "Bookish" was honored to be a part of that this year.