Honesty READS

What are Book Bans and Book Challenges? 

Book bans and book challenges are politically fueled acts of censorship that prevent students and communities from accessing and reading multidimensional stories centering race, culture, identity, sexuality, honest history, injustice, and liberation.
These educational gag orders force schools and libraries to restrict or remove historically significant and culturally relevant authors, books, and materials from classrooms, media centers, school districts, and libraries.

Book bans begin with a book challenge. Books are challenged when a person or group objects to an author, theme, or content and formally demands that a school board, school administrator, or library board of trustees restrict access to the book or ban it altogether. Schools and libraries use local policies to determine how to respond to book challenges, which include keeping, restricting, or banning the challenged book. Recently, more and more school boards and libraries have succumb to extremist political pressure and intimidation, ultimately banning many challenged books.  Challenges and bans are commonly rooted in a fear that the books will inspire the reader, and greater society, to challenge conventional beliefs and norms, question religious values, interrogate authority and power, protest political ideologies, and oppose narrow world views.

Alarming Rise of Book Bans & Censorship

There is a growing nationally coordinated, well-funded effort to ban widely-acclaimed authors and beloved books that
​tell our authentic stories, express our joy and pain, and illustrate our lived experiences. 

According to the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), there were 821 attempts to censor library materials and services. In those cases, 2,452 unique titles were challenged. Last year, ALA tracked 1,247 attempts with 4,240 unique titles challenged. Though the number of reports decreased in 2024, the number of documented attempts to censor books continues to far exceed the numbers prior to 2020. The data also shows that the majority of book censorship attempts originated from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members, and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries.