Report highlights sharp rise in book bans in past school year. Texas has highest number

A report released early Monday from PEN America, a free speech organization, highlights a growing number of book bans throughout the U.S., with Texas having the highest numbers.

The report, “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools,” was the second that PEN America released this year focusing on book bans and concerns that they limit students’ First Amendment rights and limit their exposure to different ideas.

The report found over 2,500 instances of books being banned in 32 states, affecting almost 1,650 unique book titles, .during the 2021-22 school year. Not all of the bans may be permanent. The list includes books that have been banned from school libraries and classrooms as well as those that have been removed from shelves pending investigation of complaints or placed under restricted access.

Nadine Farid Johnson, managing director of PEN America Washington and Free Expression Programs, said Monday’s report is an update to findings that the organization released in April, which showed that there were over 1,000 additional book bans since the first report came out.

Farid Johnson said she was not surprised by the data.

”What we’re seeing here is a coordinated movement, and it is growing at a rapid pace,” she said.

She said the country saw periodic book banning in the past, and that during the McCarthy era, the focus was on textbooks.

However, Farid Johnson said she is concerned that books are banned from school libraries at an “alarming pace.”

Farid Johnson said she worries about the harmful effects of the book bans as the removals often target subject matter related to historically marginalized people, including the LGBTQ community and people of color.

Texas saw the most book bans with 801 titles in 22 school districts, followed by Florida with 566 books banned in 21 school districts and Pennsylvania with 457 in 11 school districts, the report states. The numbers in the report represent documented cases of book bans reported directly to PEN America or covered in the media, so the actual numbers could be higher.

The “most-banned” books, according to the report, are, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe (banned in 41 districts), followed by “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson (banned in 29 districts) and “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez (banned in 24 districts).

The bans also include titles that are the basis of “mainstream” movies (such as “The Hate U Give” and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,”) TV series (“Thirteen Reasons Why,” “Looking for Alaska”), and a Broadway show (“The Kite Runner”).

The most-banned authors include Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and winners of the Booker Prize, the Newbery Medal, the Caldecott Medal, and the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

The report also highlighted a “constellation” of local and national groups, with many forming in 2021, that are driving book bans and also forcing teachers and librarians out of their jobs.

“Many Americans may conceive of challenges to books in schools in terms of reactive parents, or those simply concerned after thumbing through a paperback in their child’s knapsack or hearing a surprising question about a novel raised by their child at the dinner table,” the report states. “However, the large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic expressions of citizen concern. Rather, they reflect the work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission.”

Farid Johnson said the possibility of a book ban can have a chilling effect.

“When we remove books from the shelves, we are limiting learning in the classroom, and we are looking at this as undermining our freedom of expression,” she said.