NEW YORK — The New York Public Library is pushing back against the unprecedented rise in the banning or challenging of books in libraries and schools across the U.S. with an ambitious project open to teens and young adults in New York and beyond.

Over the next eight months, young readers will have the chance to read from a selection of books that have been targeted by the increasing trend of censorship, which has removed hundreds of books from library shelves and threatened some of the most basic foundations of democracy — the freedom to learn about new experiences and ideas.

“Books for All: Protect the Freedom to Read” is the NYPL’s longest-ever anti-censorship campaign. It will include a nationwide book club featuring a different title every two months, as well as a writing contest asking teen readers to describe what freedom to read means to them.

Launching during Banned Books Week beginning on Oct. 1, the initiative will run through the end of the school year.

The “large majority” of books being challenged across the country are meant for young readers, Siva Ramakrishnan, the library’s director of young adult programs and services, told The New York Daily News while explaining why the campaign will focus on teen youth and engagement.

“We’re thinking about teens and their ability to come into our safe spaces, and to explore who they are and who they want to be. We want them to have access to knowledge,” she said.

Last year, there were 1,269 demands to censor library books in the U.S., according to data compiled by the American Library Association, or ALA. That number, the highest ever recorded, will likely get worse this year. Preliminary data from the first eight months of 2023 already show an increase of 20% from the same period last year.

That figure is “especially disturbing” for libraries because “our mission is to make knowledge and information accessible to everyone,” Ramakrishnan said.

To reach teens from all across the country, the NYPL joined forces with the ALA to create the “Books for All: Teen Banned Book Club,” which will offer a commonly challenged book for a limited download via the library’s SimplyE app.

The coming-of-age fantasy novel “Each of Us a Desert” by Mark Oshiro will kick off the book club, starting on Oct. 2. The next book club pick will be announced later this year.

The other main component of the project, done in collaboration with the nonprofit 826 National, is the writing contest, in which teens will be asked to consider what freedom to read means to them. That could mean writing about the books that have been meaningful in their lives “in ways in which their identities and experiences have been affirmed by the (those) stories,” or about how book ban attempts have affected them.

“We acknowledged that there’s been a lot of talk about censorship by adults,” she said. “It’s time to hear from the teens.”