Jack Gantos isn’t your typical award-winning author. Before writing the Joey Pigza series, Rotten Ralph, and the Newbery Medal-winning Dead End in Norvelt, he served time in prison for smuggling hashish—a moment he turned into the acclaimed memoir Hole in My Life (a Michael L. Printz Honor and Sibert Honor Book). In this powerful conversation, Gantos opens up about second chances, censorship, ADHD, and how storytelling became his lifeline. Educators and librarians can explore his school visit offerings and presentations at jackgantos.com.

How do you write books that change lives—and why are they being banned?

In this inspiring interview, National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson joins Christopher Lau, host of UNBAN COOLIES, to discuss the power of literature to make young readers feel seen. Woodson talks about how her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming became both a classic and a target of censorship, and shares her thoughts on slow reading, storytelling, and what books can do that social media can’t.

We also explore how adults can guide children through tough themes in books, why some parents fear honest stories, and what it means to see your work challenged in today's climate. Woodson’s words are calm but urgent—calling for courage, compassion, and curiosity in how we share stories with the next generation.

About Jacqueline Woodson:

Jacqueline Woodson is one of America’s most celebrated authors for children and young adults. Her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming won the National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor. She’s also the author of Feathers, After Tupac and D Foster, Show Way, The Day You Begin, and more. Woodson has served as the Young People’s Poet Laureate and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and has been honored with both the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work often explores identity, memory, family, and the Black experience in America.

Interview hosted by Christopher Lau, founder of UNBAN COOLIES, a platform dedicated to amplifying diverse voices and defending the freedom to read.

Christopher Paul Curtis didn’t set out to become a literary legend—he was clocking 10-hour shifts on the General Motors assembly line, fighting exhaustion and monotony one car door at a time. But in stolen moments on the factory floor, he found escape through writing—stories scribbled between bolts and metal that would later earn him the Newbery Medal and redefine children’s literature. In this revealing interview, Curtis shares the unlikely journey behind Bud, Not Buddy and The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, born not from privilege, but perseverance. He opens up about navigating life as a Black man in America, the childhood moment his mother gave him permission to imagine, and how censorship threatens to erase the very history his books work to preserve.

Malcolm X’s voice still speaks – not as an echo, but as a call to action. In this interview, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist, shares why Malcolm’s legacy still matters today. Discover how Malcolm Lives brings the fire of one of America’s most influential figures to a new generation, challenging us to confront our history, question our present, and build a better future.

#MalcolmX #IbramXKendi #MalcolmLives #HistoryMatters #BlackHistory #BannedBooks #RevolutionaryVoices #JusticeNeverDies #UnbanBooks #SpeakTruth #FreedomToRead #ChallengingHistory #TruthToPower #ChangeMakers #NewGeneration #LiteraryLegends

Cynthia Kadohata is a Newbery Medal and National Book Award-winning author whose work has forever changed the landscape of children's literature. Born in Chicago to Japanese American parents and raised across Georgia, Arkansas, and California, Cynthia draws from real-life experiences of hardship, resilience, and identity.

Her novels — including Kira-Kira, Weedflower, Cracker!, and The Thing About Luck — center voices often overlooked in American history: immigrant families, war survivors, and working-class kids. In this heartfelt interview, Cynthia reflects on growing up without seeing her family's story in textbooks and how she now writes the stories that history forgot. We talk about the emotional roots behind her books, the importance of difficult truths in children's literature, and why, despite today's book bans, young readers have greater access to powerful stories than ever before.

To understand why Cynthia’s work matters so deeply, it’s important to remember how Japanese American history was treated — or ignored — when she was growing up. While most American textbooks today mention Japanese American internment — especially in World War II units — that wasn’t always the case.

For much of the 1950s through the 1980s, many textbooks either skipped over the topic entirely or reduced it to a few sanitized sentences, often framing it as “relocation for protection” rather than acknowledging it as a major civil rights violation. Even now, how much coverage internment receives varies widely by state: schools in places like California and Hawaii teach it more thoroughly, while in other areas it may be little more than a paragraph or an optional side note.

When Cynthia Kadohata was growing up in the 1960s, it’s very likely that her school textbooks barely touched on Japanese American internment — if they mentioned it at all. It wasn’t until later, especially after the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 formally apologized for the injustice, that efforts to include it more seriously began. Even today, internment is often under-discussed compared to other major historical events like the Holocaust or the Civil Rights Movement — making voices like Cynthia’s essential for filling in the silences history books left behind.

If you believe that every story deserves to be told — even the ones history tried to erase — this interview is for you.

As the opioid crisis continues to impact teens across the country, award-winning author and former librarian Mindy McGinnis talks about why she wrote Heroine, a brutally honest novel about a student athlete's descent into addiction and why it’s been banned in schools.

In this interview, she opens up about her own childhood reading habits, the power of dark stories, and what it means to write books that some adults try to take off shelves. Heroine isn’t about glorifying drug use - it’s about survival, empathy, and what happens when we tell the truth.

🔍 About Mindy McGinnis:

Mindy is the Edgar Award-winning author of numerous young adult novels, including:

• The Female of the Species

• A Madness So Discreet

• Be Not Far from Me

• Not a Drop to Drink

A former school librarian, Mindy is known for her unflinching exploration of topics like trauma, survival, violence, and justice. Her books are critically acclaimed for their emotional depth and real-world relevance — especially for teens navigating difficult truths.

visit Mindy: https://www.mindymcginnis.com/

Elana K. Arnold is one of the boldest voices in young adult literature today. Her award-winning books — Damsel, Red Hood, What Girls Are Made Of, and more — tackle power, consent, and girlhood with unflinching honesty. But with that truth-telling comes backlash. Her stories have earned national honors—and been pulled from shelves.

In this powerful and personal interview, Elana reflects on the experiences that shaped her voice, the emotional weight of censorship, and why she keeps writing for readers who need her stories most.

🎙 What we cover in this interview:

How her upbringing shaped her voice as a writer

The emotional toll of seeing her books banned

Her hopes for young readers and their right to choose

The courage it takes to write truthfully

What shifts when writing for younger kids vs. teens

📚 Learn more about Elana K. Arnold: https://elanakarnold.com/

✨ Subscribe for more interviews with banned and award-winning authors who are reshaping the literary world.

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Ashley Hope Pérez is a literary scholar, award-winning novelist, youth advocate, and professor at The Ohio State University. Her novel Out of Darkness, frequently listed among the most banned books in the United States , has sparked powerful conversations about racism, history, and resilience.

Ashley’s advocacy goes beyond the page: she is also the editor of Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights (Penguin Books, March 2025), an anthology amplifying voices of banned authors and offering teens a blueprint to stand against censorship.

In this interview, Ashley returns to Unban Coolies to discuss:

• The personal and professional toll of being censored

• How Out of Darkness has been received across the country

• What inspired her to create Banned Together and how it unites authors, illustrators, and student activists

• The importance of teens using their unique talents to resist book bans

• Why removing books means losing readers — and the power of that loss

Whether you're a student, educator, librarian, or advocate, this conversation reminds us all of what’s at stake and what’s possible when we fight for the freedom to read.

Interested in defending young people's access to diverse literature? Check out advocacy opportunities through the Unite to Read Project, a 3-year initiative Professor Pérez is directing at The Ohio State University. http://bit.ly/4gTK10K

Now available from Holiday House: BANNED TOGETHER: OUR FIGHT FOR READERS' RIGHTS https://bookspacecolumbus.com/product...

Check out OUT OF DARKNESS, a 2016 Printz honor book and named one of BOOKLIST's "50 Best YA Books of All Time." THE NEW YORK TIMES called it a "layered tale of color lines, love and struggle." Currently banned and removed in dozens of school districts because of coordinated attacks on diverse books. https://linktr.ee/ashleyhopeperez