Bans on public textbooks have increased by 200%, affecting more than 10,000 titles

Nov. 1 (UPI) — More than 10,000 books have been banned from public schools across the country during the 2023-2024 school year, marking a “dramatic” 200% increase over the previous year, PEN America said Friday.

In about 43% of book ban cases, or 4,295 bans, books were either completely banned from access, ineligible for review, or available with newly imposed restrictions, the freedom of expression group said in its new report . Banned in the US: Beyond the Shelves.

The number of outright bans as a percentage of all textbook bans increased by 16 percentage points (43%) in 2023-2024 compared to previous years (27%), the report found.

Since 2021, PEN America says it has counted nearly 16,000 cases of book bans in public schools.

“This crisis is tragic for young people who are hungry to understand the world they live in and to see their identities and experiences reflected in books,” said Kasey Meehan, program director of the group’s Freedom to Read. a statement.

“The passage of time when you are in 6th or 11th grade is very fast – there is a lot to learn,” he added. “What students can read in school forms the basis for their lives, whether it is critical thinking, empathy across differences.” , personal well-being or long-term success.

“Defending the core principles of public education and the freedom to read, learn and think is as necessary now as ever.”

PEN America blamed what it called “individuals and groups espousing extremely conservative views,” and said the most targeted titles were those that addressed themes of race, sexuality and gender identity – similar to previous years.

A new, emerging category of banned books are books that “reflect topics that young people face in the real world,” such as substance abuse, suicide, depression, mental health issues and sexual violence, the group found.

Florida and Iowa led the way in the number of textbook bans. Florida banned more than 4,500 titles, while Iowa banned more than 3,600. Nationwide, 29 states and 220 public school districts have issued documented bans during the 2023-2024 school year, the report said.

The most banned books were Nineteen minutes by bestselling author Jodi Picoult, Looking for Alaska by John Green, The benefits of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Sold by Patricia McCormick and Thirteen reasons why by Jay Asher.

Nineteen minutes is a 2007 bestseller about a school shooting. The author, Jodi Picoult, said the rapidly rising number of book bans is “a cry for alarm.”

“Nineteen minutes is banned not because it is about a school shooting, but because of a single page depicting date rape and using anatomically correct words for the human body,” she said. “It is not gratuitous or lustful, and it is not – as the book banners claim: porn.

“In fact, hundreds of children have told me that reading Nineteen minutes stopped them from committing a school shooting, or showed them that they were not the only ones feeling isolated. My book, and the ten thousand others pulled from the school library shelves this year, give children a tool to deal with an increasingly divided and difficult world. These book banners do not help children. They harm them,” Picoult added.