Book bans—many aimed at stories about women’s romantic sexual experiences, people of color and LGBTQ+ characters—more than doubled in the 2023-2024 school year due to aggressive new laws in states such as Florida, Iowa and Utah.
Preliminary numbers show 10,000 separate bans last school year, compared to about 3,300 in 2022-23, according to PEN America, the anti-censorship organization. Amid the steep rise, several books—including works by James Baldwin and Agatha Christie—were banned for the first time, the nonprofit advised.
Many bans singled out sexual content, leading schools to remove books about rape and sexual abuse. LGBTQ themes, and books about race or racism were also frequent targets. “Our numbers are certainly an undercount, as stories of book bans often go unreported,” PEN America advised. “These numbers also do not account for the many reports of soft censorship, including increased hesitancy in book selection, ideologically-driven restrictions of school book purchases, the removal of classroom collections, and the cancellations of author visits and book fairs.”
About 8,000 bans occurred in Florida and Iowa. A Florida law that went into effect in July 2023 mandates that any book challenged for “sexual conduct” be removed while officials are reviewing it. Subsequent state guidance on the law has made the restrictions even tighter, PEN America notes.
An Iowa law, enacted over the same summer, requires that all materials are “age-appropriate,” a standard that prohibits any description or depiction of a “sex act.” Thousands of book bans resulted last school year, a sharp increase from the 14 bans occurring over the two years prior.
PEN America described a law that went into effect in Utah this summer “the most extreme state book-banning bill currently in place.” A book is banned statewide when three districts remove it. Some 13 books have so far been prohibited. Similarly, a new law in South Carolina gives the state Board of Education the power to ban books statewide.
Book bans target new titles
The following books appeared on PEN America’s “Index of School Book Bans” for the first time in 2023-24:
- Roots: The Saga of An American Family by Alex Haley
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan
- Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. DuBois
- Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
- The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
- How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
- Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh
- Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
- Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
- Puddin’ by Julie Murphy
- Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) by Philip K. Dick
- Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
