To protest Utah’s book bans, more than 300 pack into Capitol rotunda to read

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A woman wearing a red robe and white handmaid’s bonnet stood at the center of the Utah Capitol rotunda on Friday, a book open in front of her.

The book, “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire, was banned from all Utah public schools just a month prior.

“I think everybody deserves the right to read freely, and if you don’t like a book, you don’t have to read it,” Haley Giddings said.

Her costume was inspired by Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a nod, she said, to the book’s themes of censorship and government control.

She was joined by roughly 300 other readers, free speech advocates and local organizers Friday at Let Utah Read’s annual “read-in” event. The statewide coalition, which includes The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, EveryLibrary and others, works to defend “the freedom to read,” according to its website.

Speakers on Friday included Rep. John Arthur, D-Holladay, and Calvin Crosby, co-owner of The King’s English Bookshop. Together, they condemned Utah’s sensitive materials law, which allows books to be banned from public schools statewide if they meet certain criteria.

McKenzie Compton, 16, also shared her thoughts.

“We do not want the government controlling what we can and cannot consume,” McKenzie said. “We as students have become disappointed and fearful of what is happening within our school system, and we want to find a way to change.”

Both Arthur and Crosby argued book bans are driven by adult fear — not children’s safety.

The event comes a little over a month after a group of bestselling authors sued the state, arguing the sensitive materials law that led to their books being banned is unconstitutional.

“Taking books off shelves cost our kids the chance to see themselves, build empathy and find belonging,” Aaron Welcher, a spokesperson for the ACLU, said. The ACLU is representing the plaintiffs in the suit.

The authors include award-winning novelists Elana K. Arnold and Ellen Hopkins. Together, their books make up five of the 22 titles that have been banned from all Utah public schools.

Kurt Vonnegut’s estate, represented by the late author’s four children, is also a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit. And on Feb. 5, another acclaimed author’s name was added: the late poet Maya Angelou’s estate.

‘A world that closes the door’

Author Abdi Nazemian, whose novel “Like a Love Story” was banned from all Utah schools last year, also spoke at the read-in Friday.

He spoke about his identity as an gay Iranian immigrant and how those experiences shaped the bestselling novel.

“All my life, I’ve had to fit myself into worlds that couldn’t seem to understand me,” Nazemian said. “My hope is that by revealing my full self in the pages of my books, and in moments like this, I begin a chain of empathy and acceptance.”

“Like a Love Story” is a historical, young adult queer novel that follows Reza, an Iranian boy, as he grapples with his homosexuality in 1989, amid the AIDS crisis in New York City. Nazemian said it was the first novel “ever” to feature a gay, Iranian lead male character.

The book was banned statewide after the Davis, Jordan and Washington County school districts determined it amounted to “objective sensitive material” — pornographic or otherwise indecent content, as defined by state code.

Utah law requires that when three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) remove the same title for containing “objective sensitive material,” all public schools in the state must remove it as well.

“Being queer is not pornographic in and of itself,” Nazemian said.

He continued.

“What scares me most is not being judged or misunderstood or banned,” he said. “It is a world that closes the door to respectful communication.”

Books banned from all Utah public schools

Twenty-two titles have been banned from all Utah public schools since the law took effect in 2024, the majority of which are authored by women. They are: