Restrictions on books in public schools have become “rampant and common,” according to a new report by the free speech organization PEN America, so frequent in some states that they are now considered “routine and expected part of school operations.”
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said the frequency and breadth of restrictions over the past four years has begun to desensitize Americans to the banning of books in schools.
“There’s this numbness we have,” Meehan said, “toward not just book bans, but restrictions on education that are showing up in many ways across our public school system.”
When PEN America began tracking book bans, most of the activity took place on the local level, where national organizations and parent groups targeted one school board meeting at a time.
Then states like Florida got involved, passing legislation that made it easier to prohibit certain reading material in public schools. Those laws had a chilling effect, PEN said, as district officials who worried about being out of compliance proactively pulled books off shelves.
More recently, the federal government has had a say in which books are appropriate for children. In the wake of President Trump’s executive orders on education, a school system for military families run by the Department of Defense removed nearly 600 books this year, according to PEN America.
An A.C.L.U. lawsuit arguing that the move infringed on the First Amendment rights of students listed several of the titles, including Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” and a book about L.G.B.T.Q. figures called “A Queer History of the United States.”
Books with gay and lesbian themes continue to be a flashpoint. In June, the Supreme Court weighed in, ruling that at a public school district in Maryland, parents with religious objections could opt their children out of classroom instruction about books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes.
In the 2024-25 school year, PEN found that more than 3,750 unique titles were banned in 87 school districts across the country. Over the last four school years, the organization has tracked nearly 23,000 cases of book bans across 45 states. Those numbers, which are based on publicly available information, posted on district websites and gathered by local journalists, are almost certainly an undercount.
Schools and libraries have long had mechanisms for questioning what is on their shelves, but in recent years, parents and activist groups have argued that the protocols in place were not sufficient, and that parents should have the ultimate authority over what books their children read.
But Meehan said the current environment actually takes agency away from many parents. In Utah, for example, any book banned in at least three school districts is prohibited across all 41 districts statewide.
“We have decisions being made in, let’s say, the northern part of Utah that affect every part of the state, but opinions may vary across families, across students, across educators,” Meehan said. “Elected leaders are having a heavy-handed role in what’s available for students in libraries.”
PEN considers a book “banned” if it was removed from the classroom or library circulation, either permanently or while the book was under review. PEN also considers a book banned if access to it is restricted or diminished.
Among the most banned books of the 2024-25 school year, according to PEN America, were “A Clockwork Orange,” by Anthony Burgess; “Breathless,” a coming-of-age novel by Jennifer Niven; “Sold,” by Patricia McCormick, a National Book Award finalist about a girl from Nepal sold into sexual slavery; and “Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” a queer young adult novel by Malinda Lo, which won a National Book Award.
The list also includes “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas, an enormously successful fantasy author whose books have sold tens of millions of copies.
According to the report, many of the books most often targeted in recent years address themes of race or racism, or have L.G.B.T.Q. characters. Some, like Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir “Gender Queer,” have dropped off the organization’s most banned list, likely because they are no longer available in many schools around the country.
Elizabeth A. Harris covers books and the publishing industry, reporting on industry news and examining the broader cultural impact of books. She is also an author.
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