This year’s Banned Books Week (from September 26 to October 1)—a celebration of banned books run annually by the Banned Books Week Coalition—focuses on diversity.

“The majority of banned books are disproportionally from diverse authors,” Olusina Adebayo, project manager for the Association of American Publishers, wrote on the AAP website. “[The American Library Association’s] Office for Intellectual Freedom has determined that 52% of the books challenged, or banned, over the past decade are from titles that are considered diverse content.”

September 27 will be “A Night of Silenced Voices” for independent bookstores hosting Banned Books Week events around the country, including the Housing Works Bookstore Café in New York City; Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC; Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida; The Book Cellar in Chicago; Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado; Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon; and Skylight Books in Los Angeles.

Panels, readings, and other events will take place throughout the week, many of which are listed at the Banned Books Week Coalition website. Online events, including live webinars and virtual read-outs, are also taking place.

Frequently challenged and diverse books include works by Sherman Alexie, Isabel Allende, Maya Angelou, Alison Bechdel, Sandra Cisneros, Khaled Hosseini, David Levithan, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982, according to the American Library Association.

Image Credit: Banned Books Week Coalition.