Book censorship incidents rose sharply in the United States in the early 2020s. ALA documented 4,240 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2023, while PEN America recorded 10,046 school-book-ban instances during the 2023–2024 school year. These figures measure different activities, so they should be read as complementary rather than combined totals.
On this page
- U.S. trends over time
- School bans by year and reach
- Libraries and schools targeted
- Representation in banned titles
- Formats, audiences, and genres
- Sexual content, violence, and abuse
- Health, religion, and social themes
U.S. book censorship trends over time
The American Library Association (ALA) documented 378 unique book titles challenged in the United States in 2000. Its count was 190 unique titles in 2015. The same source recorded a much higher 4,240 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2023. These are ALA figures for documented challenges or targeted unique titles in U.S. library, school, and university contexts, not a complete count of every attempted restriction.
ALA’s more recent annual figures show the scale of the change clearly:
- In 2021, ALA documented 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship.
- In 2022, it documented 2,571 unique titles targeted for censorship.
- In 2023, it documented 4,240 unique titles targeted for censorship.
- ALA also reported 1,247 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2023.
- Preliminary ALA data recorded 414 censorship attempts involving 1,128 unique titles from January 1 through August 31, 2024.
The 2024 figure covers only eight months and is explicitly preliminary, so it is not directly comparable with a full calendar-year total. The long-run series also uses the wording “challenged” for some years and “targeted for censorship” for others. Those distinctions matter when interpreting the numbers.
The earlier and later counts are reported in ALA’s Surge in Book Challenges Press Kit. The 2021 and 2022 figures also appear in ALA’s State of America’s Libraries Report 2023.
School bans by year and reach
PEN America tracks school-book-ban instances and the unique titles affected. An instance can involve a title being removed or restricted in a particular school or district; therefore, instances and unique titles are different measures.
For July 2021 through June 2022, PEN America recorded 2,532 school-book-ban instances affecting 1,648 unique titles. It recorded 3,362 school-book-ban instances in the 2022–2023 school year. During July 2023 through June 2024, the count reached 10,046 instances across 29 states and 220 public school districts.
The 2023–2024 analysis covered 4,218 unique banned titles after duplicate cleanup. That figure is a cleaned title count, while the 10,046 figure is an instance count. Both come from PEN America’s reporting, but they answer different questions: how many distinct works were affected and how many documented school-level cases were counted.
| Measure | Period | Reported figure |
|---|---|---|
| School-book-ban instances | July 2021–June 2022 | 2,532 |
| School-book-ban instances | 2022–2023 school year | 3,362 |
| School-book-ban instances | July 2023–June 2024 | 10,046 |
| Unique banned titles | July 2023–June 2024 | 4,218 |
| School-book-ban instances | 2024–2025 school year | 6,870 |
| Unique affected titles | 2024–2025 school year | 3,752 |
PEN America’s 2024–2025 count covered 6,870 school-book-ban instances across 23 states and 87 districts, affecting 3,752 unique titles. Its cumulative index recorded 22,810 school-book-ban cases across 45 states and 451 districts since July 2021. The cumulative figure spans multiple school years and should not be treated as a single-year total.
State-level counts also varied substantially in 2023–2024. Florida recorded 4,561 school book bans, while Iowa recorded 3,671. Those state counts are included in PEN America’s Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves. The school-year totals and cumulative index are reported in The Normalization of Book Banning, while the 4,218-title analysis is described in Cover to Cover.
PEN America notes that its index is not comprehensive because it relies on reports and media coverage. Its figures therefore represent documented cases identified through that methodology, not every restriction in every district.
Where challenges were directed
ALA reported 729 book challenges in 2021 and 1,269 in 2022. In 2022, nearly 51% of ALA’s censorship demands targeted school libraries or schools, while 48% targeted public libraries. The categories are close to the full set but are presented by ALA as separate reported shares, so rounding may affect their apparent sum.
The 2022 data also show that challenges often involved groups of books rather than isolated titles. ALA reported that 90% of book challenges sought to censor multiple titles. Among demands to censor library books, 40% sought to remove or restrict more than 100 books at once.
The direction of activity changed differently by setting in the next year. According to ALA, public-library titles targeted for censorship increased 92% from 2022 to 2023. School-library censorship activity increased 11% over the same period. These percentages describe changes in ALA’s reported activity and do not represent the percentage of all U.S. libraries experiencing a challenge.
The library-specific figures come from the State of America’s Libraries Report 2023 and the Surge in Book Challenges Press Kit.
Representation in banned titles
PEN America’s 2023–2024 analysis of 4,218 unique banned titles identified several forms of representation. Characters or people of color appeared in 1,534 titles, or 36%. LGBTQ+ people or characters appeared in 1,066 titles, or 25%. About 10% featured neurodivergent or disabled characters or people.
The LGBTQ+ category included additional intersections. Among the banned titles with LGBTQ+ people or characters, 28% featured trans or genderqueer characters. Also among that LGBTQ+ group, 54% featured characters or people of color. These percentages describe subsets, so they should not be applied to all 4,218 titles without further calculation.
History and biography had their own representation profile. Among 2023–2024 history and biography titles, 44% featured people of color. Among historical and biographical titles, 26% featured Black people. The source presents these as content characteristics of titles in the relevant category, not as reasons assigned to individual bans.
The same analysis counted 1,534 titles with people of color and 1,066 with LGBTQ+ people or characters, but those groups can overlap. A title may also include disability, neurodivergence, or multiple forms of racial, ethnic, and gender representation. For that reason, these are descriptive categories rather than mutually exclusive portions of the banned-title set.
Formats, audiences, and genres
Fiction accounted for 85% of titles in PEN America’s 2023–2024 banned-title analysis. Nonfiction accounted for 14%, and poetry accounted for 1%. Together, those percentages describe the source’s broad format grouping.
The audience breakdown was led by young-adult books, which represented 53% of titles. Adult titles represented 32%, and middle-grade titles represented 11%. The reported audience shares do not sum to 100%, so the source may include additional or unreported categories; the figures should be retained as reported rather than normalized.
In the genre analysis, realistic titles represented 40% of titles. “Realistic” is a genre descriptor in the source’s analysis and does not mean that every title in the category was nonfiction. The format, audience, and genre classifications are separate lenses: a title can be fiction, young adult, and realistic at the same time.
These findings help explain why a simple “banned books” label can conceal different reading experiences. The data include novels and other fictional works, nonfiction and poetry, books for adults and younger readers, and titles classified through overlapping genre and subject categories.
Sexual content, violence, and abuse
Sex-related content appeared in 1,817 titles, or 43% of the 2023–2024 set. PEN America separately reported that 40% of titles included sexual experiences: 13% had on-page sexual experiences and 31% had off-page sexual experiences. Because the source reports these measures separately, the percentages should not be added or treated as mutually exclusive.
Among titles with sex-related content, 92% depicted consensual sexual experiences. Within that same sex-related group, 11% included abortion or teen pregnancy. The source’s categories can overlap with other content classifications, and they describe what appears in a title rather than proving why a challenge occurred.
Non-sexual violence appeared in 60% of titles banned in 2023–2024. Among those titles with non-sexual violence, 74% involved physical fights or assault. Sexual violence appeared in 23% of the full banned-title set; among those titles, 88% involved sexual assault or rape.
These figures show why content counts need their denominators stated. For example, 88% refers to titles within the 23% sexual-violence subset, not to 88% of all 4,218 titles. Similarly, 74% refers only to titles with non-sexual violence. The source’s classifications are not a ranking of severity and should not be read as a causal explanation for individual censorship decisions.
Health, religion, and social themes
Death and grief appeared in 55% of titles banned in 2023–2024, making them among the most common reported themes in the analysis. Mental-health themes appeared in 33% of titles, while substance use or abuse appeared in 30%. Suicide appeared as a theme in 16%.
Religion appeared in 14% of titles, or 603 books. Activism and social movements appeared in 15%. These themes may coexist in the same title, so the percentages are descriptive frequencies rather than categories that add to a total.
Taken together, the figures indicate that the documented set covered a broad range of subjects: grief, mental health, substance use, suicide, religion, activism, sexuality, violence, and representation. The numbers do not establish that a particular theme caused a title to be challenged or banned. They describe the content patterns identified by PEN America in its 2023–2024 review.
ALA and PEN America measure different parts of book censorship. ALA reports documented challenges, censorship demands, attempts, and targeted unique titles across library, school, and university contexts. PEN America reports documented school-book-ban instances and unique titles, with a methodology dependent on available reports and media coverage. Keeping those units, dates, and geographies separate is essential when comparing the scale of book censorship incidents.