Over 4000 books were banned in US schools in the 2023/24 school year. A new report from PEN America suggests that books featuring characters of colour or LGBTQ+ themes are unfairly targeted. There are similar findings internationally, including Australia’s propensity for book bans on LGBTQ+ families or conservative Christian schools banning the Harry Potter series.
In the last school year in the US, people of colour were overrepresented in the banned books, with over a third of banned titles featuring fictional characters of colour. Almost half of the banned non-fiction books featured people of colour and almost a third of the titles featured LGBTQ+ themes or characters.
“This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalised and underrepresented populations – a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements and history from schools,” says Sabrina Baêta, senior manager of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program.
Perhaps most disturbingly, PEN America says that 2023/24 showcased more book bans than ever before, with over 10,000 separate instances of book bans across schools in the US. That number is more than double that of the previous year.
Many of the schools expressed concern over explicit sex scenes or sexual themes. However, of the books banned, PEN America says just 13% include descriptions of an explicitly sexual nature.
The most banned books were:
- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
