Book Challenges & Bans

Graph showing the increase in book challenges from 305 in 2003 to 2,571 in 2022.

Why are Books Challenged?

People request children's, young adult, and adult books be removed from public and school libraries for a wide variety reasons, including:

Indecency
Disturbing
Unruly
Sexual Content
Racial Content
Un-Christian
Grammatically incorrect

In recent years there have been three consistent themes: LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit, and equity, diversity, & inclusion content. Sometimes under the pretense of challenging books for being sexually explicit, books are in fact challenged because they address issues of equity, diversity, & inclusion. Ashley Hope Pérez discusses this political strategy in an interview about her book Out of Darkness Links to an external site., the 9th most challenged book of 2022:

'Young People have a Right' to Stories that Help them Learn. Links to an external site.

In 2022, the American Library Association documented 2,571 titles that had been targeted for censorship, the highest number since ALA began compiling data about censorship more than 20 years ago. Most of the books were by or about LGBTQIA+ persons and people of color.

Citations

Perez, Ashley Hope. "'Young People have a Right' to Stories that Help them Learn. Links to an external site." NPR, 14 Dec. 2022.