Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Banned Camp is a comedy podcast where we read banned books and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.

Each season, we tackle a new banned book, reading it chapter by chapter and asking: What made someone clutch their pearls and scream, "BAN IT!"? (Spoiler: It’s rarely what you’d expect.)

One thing is clear: the people banning these books often haven’t read them. While we uncover some eyebrow-raising moments, nothing truly justifies censorship.

Join us—and our listeners, "The Scary Book People"—as we explore the strange, hilarious, and sometimes baffling world of banned books.

Past seasons have featured classics like:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

This season, we’re reading into Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Together, we’ll explore its dark humor, wild storytelling, and the controversies that made it one of the most challenged books of all time.

By reading these books, we ask big questions:

Why are banned books important?
What does “banned books” mean?
What does “challenged” books mean?
How do book bans affect students?
Are book bans constitutional?

Come hang out with us and have some laughs while we dig into the drama behind banned books—you might even learn something cool along the way!

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