Rainbow Book Bus reacts colorfully to bans

LOS ANGELES – No matter where it is, the cheerful Rainbow Book Bus always attracts attention.

The bus houses a mobile collection of queer books, from romance to children’s titles, with the goal of bringing books to communities most affected by book bans.

The American Library Association reported that around 4,240 books were banned in 2023. For Rainbow Book Bus co-founder and operations manager Chris Kapell, this is a problem for the queer community.

“There is a crisis of book fans across the country right now. Unfortunately, many of these book bans disproportionately affect books with LGBT themes and especially books for young people,” Kappel said.

So they took an old school bus and a bit of magic and came up with a colorful solution.

“The bus was founded with the idea that if you lose access to these books because legislators in these regions want to take them off the shelves, we will show up with a big, amazing rainbow book bus and give them away for free,” Kappel said.

This year, the bus went on a nationwide tour, distributing over 7,000 banned LGBTQ+ books.

And like the bus, every detail was designed to be representative.

For more information, visit rainbowbookbus.org.