Picture libraries across the US where shelves grow emptier by the day, not because of curious readers but because of mounting book bans. Throughout the past few years, certain states have tried to challenge and ban countless books across the country. A book ban is a form of censorship that occurs when private individuals, government officials, and organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, and districts.
Banned books typically fall under a common theme. These themes consist of books on race, gender, sexuality, and many other topics. According to the American Library Association, as of 2020, 92.5% of banned books contain sexual content, 23.5% of them contain LGBTQ+ content, and 16.5% them contain racism. According to IB English teacher Mr. Arden, “The most high profile book bannings are normally because they introduce children to a topic that parents feel that they should not know anything about.”
Numerous groups that operate at the national, state, and local levels stand behind these book bans, as they campaign around the potential dangers that certain books can induce. B-CC librarian Mr. Baczkowski said, “It appears that there is an organized effort to share lists of supposedly objectionable books between groups across the country and all these local groups go to their school board and present this same list and say these books should be removed. This occurs across the country.”
With the increasing pressure to ban books, there is also a push against such censorship. This opposition is because many banned books include meaningful topics about race or identity, which leaves many complaining about the low diversity and inclusion efforts that come when challenging books.
According to the article The 50 most banned books in America, “In 2023, the top banned book across the US was ‘Gender Queer: A Memoir’ by Maia Kobabe.”
“We have ‘Gender Queer: A Memoir’ by Maia Kobabe in our library and I was also the person who evaluated it and approved it for our library,” Mr. Baczkowski said. ‘Gender Queer: A Memoir’ was banned from school libraries and classroom bookshelves on 41 separate instances. This book gained popularity and bans across the country mainly because of explicit illustrations depicting Kobabe’s sexual discovery.
Book bans peaked in 2023, reaching an all-time high across America. According to the article Banned Book Statistics, “In 2022, book-banning efforts included 2,571 unique books targeted as problematic by various groups and individuals. This was a 60.99% increase compared to 2021.”
“In 2020 there was an explosion of challenges in the US,” Mr. Baczkowski said. “It was for about two decades somewhere around 200 books all across the county every year. But in 2020, it exploded into many hundreds and peaked in 2023 to be around 4,000. The number of banned books has decreased but it is still way higher than it was before 2020 and the reason is that organized effort to share a list of objectionable books between groups to share to school boards to try and ban these books across the country.” This drastic increase from 2020 to 2023 also has to do with the COVID-19 outbreak that temporarily closed schools and libraries nationwide, so there was minimal effort to ban books. However, this trend of banned books continued after 2020: “During 2022 there were more titles in danger of getting banned than in 2021, 2020, and 2019 combined,” according to Banned Book Statistics.
The percentage of banned books across the U.S. has fluctuated over many years. This type of censorship reflects our society as a whole and what people deem appropriate for students and children.
