By Lauren

Book banning in the US continued its stratospheric rise in 2023, with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) reporting that challenges of unique titles surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022—the highest level ever documented by the American Library Association (ALA).

Public libraries saw a whopping 92% increase in the number of titles targeted for censorship in 2023 compared to the year before (making up almost half of all book challenges), while school libraries saw an 11% increase over the 2022 numbers.

“Books are under profound attack in the United States,” writes PEN America. “They are disappearing from library shelves, being challenged in droves, being decreed off limits by school boards, legislators, and prison authorities. And everywhere, it is the books that have long fought for a place on the shelf that are being targeted. Books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history.”

Titles representing LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47 percent of those targeted for censorship. Indeed, the top five of the ALA’s 10 most challenged books in 2023 were cited for their LGBTQIA+ content, including Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson. Young Adult (YA) books also feature prominently.

Even Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison wasn’t spared, with her The Bluest Eye placing number six on the ALA’s 2023 most challenged books list.

And earlier in August, the US state of Utah ordered 13 books removed from all its classrooms and libraries, including Judy Blume’s Forever, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and four books in young adult fantasy writer Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series.

Utah says the books are pornographic or indecent under a law passed just this summer. PEN America, meanwhile, says it’s the first time they’ve seen a state requiring all its schools to remove a list of titles

During one week every September, this troubling ongoing trend is highlighted during Banned Books Week (September 22 – 28), which has been promoting the freedom to read and access to information since 1982.

ABC will be holding a talk with author and New York Times culture writer Nina Siegal on September 24 to discuss the topic in more depth. You can read her ABC interview on banned books here.

We will also be stocking our shelves with the books some out there want to ban. Check out our Highlights List of banned books here.

So, ruin a book banners day and join the entire book community — from librarians, booksellers and publishers to journalists, teachers and readers — in supporting the freedom to seek out and express ideas, even those some people consider unorthodox, unpopular or just plain unpleasant. (Read: different.)

And if you’d like to read what we think about banned books, please read this article.