Banned Books

Every year, there are hundreds of attempts to remove books from American bookstores, libraries, and schools. These challenges and the books restricted or banned from readers result in thousands of lost opportunities to explore ideas that fuel a better understanding of the world around us. Words have immense power, and access to diverse ideas makes all of us more powerful. Celebrate the freedom to read and raise awareness of censorship by reading your favorite banned book during Banned Books Week, October 5 - 11, 2025. 

Read for your rights, and remember: censorship is so 1984. Visit ala.org/bbooks to learn more about book banning patterns and anti-censorship resources. 

The video below puts book banning into historical context and explains the implications of book banning today. 

Video References

Klimek, Chris, Carla Hayden and Colleen Connolly. “A Brief History of Banned Books in America.” Smithsonian Magazine. Oct. 5, 2023. 

Weekes, Princess. “The Fiery History of Banned Books.” PBS: It's Lit! Sep. 21, 2020. 

The Freedom to Read Statement (first paragraph)

“The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label ‘controversial’ views, to distribute lists of ‘objectionable’ books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.”

Each year, books are challenged, banned, and restricted for a variety of reasons. The top reasons books are challenged include:

• Offensive language
• Sexual content
• Material unsuited for a particular age group (e.g., children)

Other objections include:

• Violence
• LGBTQIA+ characters or themes (e.g., homosexuality)
• Religious viewpoints
• References to the occult or satanism
• Portrayals of Marxism
• Explicit or implied nudity
• Topics of race and racism (e.g., critical race theory or cultural stereotyping)
• Drug use, alcohol use, or smoking
• Anti-family viewpoints

The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom created an infographic called "Censorship by the Numbers," which documents another year in an unabating deluge of efforts to censor library materials, continuing an extremist campaign to suppress access to books that began in 2021. In 2024, 2,452 unique titles were challenged, the third highest number ever documented by ALA and significantly exceeding the annual average of 273 unique titles over the period from 2001–2020.  The infographic is divided into three sections.

The first section,  "Who Challenges Books?", features a pie chart based on 5,813 book challenges. It shows that 36% of challenges come from boards/administrators, 26% from pressure groups, 16% from parents, 10% from elected officials, 7% from other/unknown parties, 4% from patrons, and 1% from librarians, teachers, or staff.

The second section, "Where Do Challenges Take Place?", uses statistics based on 804 cases with known locations. Icons show that 55% of censorship challenges happen in public libraries, 38% in school libraries, 5% in schools, and 2% in higher education or other locations.

The third section, "Books and Beyond," tracked 821 censorship attempts in 2024. A pictogram bar chart shows that 76% of censorship targets are books and graphic novels (blue squares); 6% involved hate crimes such as vandalism and theft of materials representing marginalized groups (yellow squares); 6% involved library displays (pink squares), 3% involved library programs (red squares); 3% involves impacts to access, such as library closures, funding, or bomb threats (purple squares); 2% involved films (green squares); and 4% involved other targets (orange squares).

The bottom section is a line graph titled "Censorship Trends." The majority of library censorship can be tied to organized campaigns. Pressure groups and the administrators, board members, and elected officials they influenced targeted 4,190 total titles in 2024. From 2001–2020, this constituency attempted to remove an average of 46 titles per year. Comparing titles targeted by pressure groups and decision makers between 2001 and 2020, 6% of total titles were targeted in 2005, 8% were targeted in 2010, 14% were targeted in 2015, before steadily climbing to 25% in 2020. After 2020, there were sharp increases, culminating in 72% of titles being targeted by pressure groups and decision makers in 2024.