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 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023. The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by OIF in more than 20 years of tracking: 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. This tops the previous high from 2022, when 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship. Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.
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 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023. The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by OIF in more than 20 years of tracking: 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. This tops the previous high from 2022, when 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship. Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.
TAKE ACTION
Protect OUR Stories and the Freedom to Read!
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❤️ READ & SHARE Banned Books ❤️
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📚 BANNED BOOKS WEEK 2025 📚
October 5-11, 2025 Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. By focusing on efforts to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. Learn More |
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🚨 Report Censorship 🚨
The American Library Association tracks censorship and challenges to materials, resources, and services across the nation using a live reporting system. Information is used to compile the Top 10 Most Challenged Books list and trend reports for public awareness. |