Cargill UMC Banned Book Club

This month, we are reading Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold
The story follows Bisou Martel, a teenager who develops a supernatural ability to sense when men intend harm to women after a traumatic encounter with a wolf in the woods. This power draws her into confrontations with dangerous men and forces her to confront themes of female empowerment, toxic masculinity, and the legacy of violence passed down through generations of women in her family.

Arrowhead Library System has five copies available plus ebook and audio versions. It’s available for purchase online for as little as $7 on amazon.
Do your best to read the book before the discussion.

Every year, books are banned and challenged in public and school libraries, usually because they fall somewhere on a wide spectrum of appropriateness. Often a single parent (or someone who doesn’t have a child in the school district) can challenge a book, which effectively removes it from the shelves pending a review. Many children (and adults) get their reading books from their school or public library, so removing them from the shelf makes them inaccessible to that reader, effectively banning them. We rebelliously read these banned books and discuss what they are about and why they have been banned.

Questions? Contact Dianne Edson – dianne@cargillumc.org

Below is reading schedule for 2025
9/24/2025 – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Fagran Foer
11/5/2025 – Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur