In 2025–26, 11,982 books were banned in public schools, according to PEN America’s latest spotlight on national findings about the subject.
“This is the highest number of recorded bans in a single year since PEN America began tracking book bans in 2021,” according to the organization. For comparison, there were 2,532 bans recorded in 2021–22, 3,362 in 2022–23, 10,046 in 2023–24 and 6,870 in 2024–25.
During the most recent academic year, 7,370 of those were unique titles — accounting for the work of more than 4,000 authors, illustrators and translators — and 4,500 of the titles had never appeared in PEN America’s prior index reporting.
This represents “the most new titles added to the index in a single year, illustrating the continued expansion of the book banning crisis,” the report notes. “This school year also saw the highest number of school districts (114) banning books in a single school year.”
A list of some titles banned for the first time per PEN America’s recordings and the most commonly banned authors are included in the report.
Consistent with previous years, books for young adults were the most removed (58 percent), followed by those for adults (26 percent) and middle schoolers (10 percent).
Eighty-seven percent of titles impacted were works of fiction and 12 percent were nonfiction.
In California, there were two instances of book bans, according to findings, and neighboring Oregon, Nevada and Arizona had none. Texas (8,193) and Florida (3,212) were the states with the most occurrences and represent the majority of the bans recorded across the U.S.
Trends and implications
Trends contributing to the bans include political pressures (by way of legislation passed by states and the influence of organized groups) as well as local educational agencies utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to identify books recommended for removal — sometimes without additional consultation from experts.
“As districts respond to vague and unclear directives from state departments of education and state legislation, district administrators are increasingly turning to AI to evaluate books for removal,” the report explains. As public records from an example in Texas illustrate, “generative AI/generative AI chatbots repeatedly recommend removing books, not because those books are obscene under the prevailing legal standard, but instead because other districts have banned them. This phenomenon of using AI to guide removals will worsen the snowball effect of book bans that has already gone much too far.”
Additionally, the removal of graphic novels, specifically manga, is increasingly prevalent.
“As with graphic novels and other illustrated texts, visual panels in manga books are often taken out of context with challenges often targeting visual depictions of sex, violence, and gender identity,” the report states. “‘Context stripping,’ or examining panels or images without any regard to the book as a whole, is a common tactic in misinformation campaigns against manga titles, with censorship advocates deeming them ‘inappropriate’ or ‘explicit.’”
PEN America reiterated that its annual analysis “consistently highlights that efforts to purge stories and books from schools have overwhelmingly targeted books about race and racism, LGBTQ+ people or characters, people or characters of color, and sex.”
“School libraries make knowledge and ideas available, ensure books remain available for all regardless of personal or political ideologies, and open gateways to stories that inform, challenge, and reflect the realities of the world back to readers. Book bans impede the freedom to read, cutting students’ access to a diversity of views, voices, perspectives, and literature they deserve to encounter,” the report concludes.
