Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes was the Most Commonly Banned Book
(NEW YORK)— PEN America today released new documentation of public school book bans for the full 2023-2024 school year, recording 10,046 instances of books banned nationwide, a dramatic 200 percent rise over the previous school year. Since 2021, the free expression organization has counted close to 16,000 instances of book bans in public schools.
According to Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves, 43% of book ban cases, or 4,295 bans, were books completely prohibited from access – neither pending a review nor available with newly imposed restrictions. Books completely removed from access were 16 percentage points higher this year (43%) compared to prior years (27%).
As has been true since this censorship crisis started in 2021, individuals and groups espousing extreme conservative viewpoints predominantly targeted titles with themes of race, sexuality, and gender identity. The report also found that books are increasingly being censored that depict topics young people confront in the real world, including experiences with substance abuse, suicide, depression and mental health concerns, and sexual violence.
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said: “This crisis is tragic for young people hungry to understand the world they live in and see their identities and experiences reflected in books. The passage of time when you’re in 6th grade or 11th grade is very fast – with much to learn about. What students can read in schools provides the foundation for their lives, whether critical thinking, empathy across difference, personal well-being, or long-term success. The defense of the core principles of public education and the freedom to read, learn, and think is as necessary now as ever.”
Florida and Iowa led all states in K-12 book bans during the 2023-2024 school year, due to laws in both states that censor books in public schools. Florida banned over 4,500 books and Iowa banned over 3,600. Together they account for 8,232 instances of bans, and are among the 29 states and 220 public school districts with documented bans in the 2023-2024 Index of School Book Bans.
The report is the latest in PEN America’s Banned in the USA series, started in 2021, which documents and explores educational censorship in America’s public schools. Book bans occur when titles selected by teachers, librarians, and others with reading and content expertise are overridden by school boards, administrators, and even politicians.
An updated Index of School Book Bans showed 4,231 unique titles were banned during the 2023-2024 school year, impacting 2,662 authors, 195 illustrators, and 31 translators, a total of 2,877 creative individuals. Over the last three years, 6,143 titles and 4,563 creatives have been affected by book bans.
Nineteen Minutes by bestselling author Jodi Picoult was the most commonly banned book during the last school year. It is among 19 titles banned in 50 or more school districts. The next most frequently banned titles were: Looking for Alaska by John Green; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.
“Having the most banned book in the country is not a badge of honor – it’s a call for alarm,” Picoult said. “Nineteen Minutes is banned not because it’s about a school shooting, but because of a single page that depicts a date rape and uses anatomically correct words for the human body. It is not gratuitous or salacious, and it is not – as the book banners claim – porn. In fact, hundreds of kids have told me that reading Nineteen Minutes stopped them from committing a school shooting, or showed them they were not alone in feeling isolated. My book, and the ten thousand others that have been pulled off school library shelves this year, give kids a tool to deal with an increasingly divided and difficult world. These book banners aren’t helping children. They are harming them.”
In addition to Picoult and Green, some of the most frequently banned authors include Ellen Hopkins, Sarah J. Maas, and Stephen King. These authors have had several different titles banned: 74 titles by Stephen King were banned; as were 22 different books by Maas, the popular fantasy series author, and Picoult, as well as 19 titles by Hopkins. Hopkins has noted that because her books have been banned, many librarians are now afraid to pick up her new title, Sync, a young adult novel that explores twins separated in the foster care system.
National and state groups that have organized around school book bans continue to maintain lists of titles they urge schools, parents, and community members to remove from libraries. Many of the banned titles in 2023-2024 are on these lists.
Since 2021, when PEN America began closely tracking school book bans, it has recorded 15,940 instances of book bans overall across 43 states and 415 public school districts, according to its updated Index of School Book Bans.
Sabrina Baêta, manager for the Freedom to Read program, noted the alarming numbers still do not capture the magnitude of “soft censorship” that has coursed through public schools. She said: “Book banning is only one part of the larger story in public education. Every day we are seeing reports of author visits and book fairs canceled, libraries shuttered for excessive book reviews, and heightened scrutiny and intimidation of teachers and librarians. This soft censorship can be subtle and harder to track, such as when books are deliberately weeded from libraries because of their content. Our book ban data is a bellwether of this broader climate.”
In 2023-2024, in addition to book bans in Florida and Iowa, several states recorded 100 book bans or more – 538 in Texas, 408 in Wisconsin, 121 in Virginia, and 100 in Kentucky. In Wisconsin, Virginia, and Kentucky, five or fewer school districts accounted for all bans within these states.
Disproportionate to publishing rates, titles about LGBTQ+ people and characters, people and characters of color, and books with sex-related content were overwhelmingly affected. Analyzing book titles banned in two or more districts, or 1,091 unique titles, PEN America found that 57% of these include sex or sex-related topics and content, 44% included characters or people of color, and 39% included LGBTQ+ characters or people.
Since 2021, PEN America has been at the forefront of documenting and defending against the unprecedented school book bans spike and the spread of educational censorship targeting subjects in K-12 public schools and colleges. This latest report provides a snapshot of the 2023-2024 school year, the third school year PEN America has recorded instances of book bans.
PEN America’s Tracking of Book Bans
With this latest report, PEN America collected three types of school book bans: bans from school libraries and classrooms (“banned”), bans that are pending investigation or review (“banned pending investigation”), and bans by restriction such as grade-level restrictions or parental permission (“banned by restriction”). For a detailed explanation of each type of book ban, visit our School Book Ban FAQ.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], (201) 247-5057