Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week was introduced in 1982 to bring attention to a collection of books that had recently been prohibited to the public. The Association of American Publishers contacted Judith Krug, the director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association (ALA), expressing concerns about a recent banning of books. Krug and the Intellectual Freedom Committee immediately went into action, initiating the first official Banned Books Week. The campaign was meant to be a celebration of American people’s freedom to read any book individuals wanted, regardless of how others felt about it. Banned Books Week is held annually in the fall and is marked by efforts to educate the public about challenges to books.

Brief History

The act of banning books has been around for centuries. The first book ban in North America is attributed to seventeenth-century Puritans. Thomas Morton was an English businessman who journeyed to Massachusetts in 1624 and established a community outside of Plymouth Colony. He was not a Puritan and supported a variety of celebrations at odds with their beliefs. In 1637 he published New English Canaan, a critical analysis of Puritan customs and values. Puritan leaders promptly banned it.

Banning has been used to restrict access to books for hundreds of years and stems from differences in political views, religious ideologies, and cultural expressions. The United States’ literary history is full of attempts to challenge and ban books. Challenging a book is often the first stage in a process that could ultimately lead to banning a book. A person or group challenges a book or material by attempting to have it removed or restricted from an educational curriculum or a library on the grounds that it goes against their values or beliefs. A book is banned when the school, school district, library, or other organization decides to remove the book or material from the curriculum or library.

The issue was litigated for the first time in the Island Trees School District v. Pico case in 1982. The US Supreme Court ruled that school officials cannot ban books solely based on their content. This First Amendment ruling inspired the American Booksellers Association to set up an exhibit at its trade show demonstrating the importance of the freedom to read and access information. At the entrance to the show, a padlocked metal cage contained hundreds of books. A sign above it cautioned that some people find the books to be dangerous. The attention given to the issue as a result prompted organizers to reach out to Krug at the ALA to help spread this powerful message. Banned Books Week was instituted only a few weeks later and has been celebrated annually by libraries, schools, bookstores, and organizations across the world. According to the ALA, some commonly challenged books include the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain; The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas; and Looking for Alaska, by John Green.

Topic Today

Banned Books Week is controversial. The act of challenging or banning a book is often based upon good intentions—for example, to protect children from difficult ideas or information. However, deciding whether an idea is inappropriate or offensive is subjective, and while many people celebrate the concept of Banned Books Week, others oppose it. Those who support it push for the right of individuals to make decisions for themselves, rather than being told what they can or cannot read. They say challenging or banning a book impinges on an individual’s basic human rights. Those who criticize Banned Books Week’s premise assert that certain books are too conservative, too liberal, suppressive, dangerous, or offensive to be read by students at a given age. They worry that the content of the book will have a negative impact on children’s mental or emotional well-being.

The ALA and the National Coalition Against Censorship have established a formal process for challenging books. Steps include completion of a preliminary challenge form, formation of a committee to address the validity of the form, and an official hearing to decide whether the book should be banned. Some schools have removed books from classrooms or libraries or from the curriculum without following a formal process. An examination of books being challenged or banned offers insight into the practice. Quantitative research shows that books by or about people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, and people with disabilities are significantly more likely to be challenged or banned. Opponents of book bans have argued that books by and about marginalized individuals and communities are already statistically underrepresented in published literature, so banning them takes away opportunities for children and students to see themselves or other diverse human experiences in literature.

Over the 2021–22 school year, a book banning movement of about fifty groups emerged in the United States. The movement was fueled by conservative social and political groups at the local, state, and national levels coordinating their efforts to remove titles from libraries and classrooms. The most prominent national groups advocating for book bans were Moms for Liberty, Citizens Defending Freedom, and Parents' Rights in Education. The vast majority of the books targeted by these groups featured LGBTQ characters, characters of color, topics of race and racism in American history, or sexuality. Critics noted that individuals challenging these books often had not read them. Some of the tactics employed by these groups included swarming school board meetings, making demands to change library rating systems, accusing books and authors of grooming children, and filing criminal complaints against school employees. By 2024, statistics from the ALA revealed that the majority of book censorship attempts now originated from organized movements, with pressure groups and government entities (including board members and elected officials) initiating 72 percent of the demands to ban books in school and public libraries, compared to just 16 percent originating with parents.

As such, the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) reported record numbers of book challenges, in which an individual or group requested the removal or restriction of public school or library materials, in the early 2020s. In 2022, the ALA reported that it received 1,269 reports of book challenges, representing the highest number of attempted book bans in ALA history. Further, this number represented a nearly 50 percent increase over the number of book challenges in 2021. The ALA noted that most of the books challenged or removed were by or about Black or LGBTQ people. The organization also stated that the data showed a significant increase in targeting multiple titles per challenge versus challenging a single title. In fact, 40 percent of book challenges in 2022 sought to remove or restrict access to more than one hundred books at the same time.

Although the number of attempted book bans reported by the ALA decreased slightly in subsequent years, the ALA warned that underreporting and legislative restrictions contributed to the perceived decline. Legislation passed in several states restricted the materials available in libraries and schools, thus resulting in the removal of books without book challenges taking place. At the same time, the ALA reported that the number of unique titles challenged had set records, with 4,235 challenged in 2025, and 92 percent of all book challenges that year had been initiated by pressure groups and government officials.

Bibliography

“Banned Book FAQ.” American Library Association, www.ala.org/bbooks/banned-books-qa. Accessed 6 May 2026.

Bush, Ally. “The Little-Known History of Banned Books in the United States.” Reading Partners, 28 Sept. 2020, readingpartners.org/blog/history-banned-books-week/. Accessed 6 May 2026.

"Censorship by the Numbers: Banned Book Data." American Library Association, www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data. Accessed 6 May 2026.

“How to Respond to Challenges and Concerns about Library Resources.” American Library Association, www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/respond. Accessed 6 May 2026.

“Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982).” Bill of Rights Institute, billofrightsinstitute.org/e-lessons/island-trees-school-district-v-pico-1982. Accessed 6 May 2026.

Knox, Emily J. M. “Silencing Stories: Challenges to Diverse Books.” The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, vol. 3, no. 2, 2019, pp. 24–39.

Meehan, Kasey, et al. “Banned in the USA: The Mounting Pressure to Censor.” PEN America, 1 Sept. 2023, pen.org/report/book-bans-pressure-to-censor/. Accessed 6 May 2026.