What’s more frightening than a hungry zombie? The ghoulish way books are being banned in school districts across the country.
And it’s not just stories meant to scare readers during spooky season. The books on this seasonal list represent just a handful of the 22,810 instances of book bans in U.S. public schools since 2021 accounted for in PEN America’s research.
This widespread removal of books is more chilling than anything the most banned author of the 2024-2025 school year, Stephen King, ever conjured in his stories. The drive to limit what school kids can read, pushed by a handful of politicians and special-interest groups across the country, overwhelmingly targets books that explore themes such as race and racism, gender identity and sexuality, sex experiences and sexual violence – books that can reach kids at important moments in their lives.
Here are some of the stories that might tempt a kid to curl up on a cool autumn evening for a seasonal thrill, if they weren’t removed from the shelves in their schools:
- Beware the Werewolf by Andrés Miedoso, and 13 other titles by the author, banned in at least one Pennsylvania district.
- Dracula by Bram Stoker, banned in at least one Florida district.
- Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, one of nine titles by the author banned in at least 16 districts in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Texas, Virginia, Utah, and Wisconsin.
- Help for the Haunted and Help for the Haunted Heroine by John Searles, banned in at least three districts in Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
- Introducing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man by Greg Rosa, banned in at least one district in Texas.
- It by Stephen King, whose books have been banned nearly 400 times in school districts across the country since 2021.
- Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge, banned in at least one district in Missouri.
- The Mermaid, The Witch, and The Sea, by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, one of two titles by the author banned in at least eight districts in Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
- Monster Trouble! by Lane Fredrickson, banned in at least one district in Pennsylvania.
- Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis, banned in at least one district in Florida.
- Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, banned in at least one Texas district.
- Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz, banned in at least one Florida district and one Oklahoma district.
- Spooky Weird! by Anh Do, one of 17 titles in the author’s WeirDo Series banned in at least one Pennsylvania district and one Iowa district.
- These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling, one of two titles by the author banned in at least one Tennessee district, one Iowa district and one Texas district
- A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris, one of six titles by the author banned in at least 10 districts in Florida.
