Reports Pen America

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 5, 2025, 12:46 PM

PEN America's report found 6,870 instances of book bans in 2024 and 2025. Books bans in public schools have become a "new normal" in the U.S., escalating since 2021, according to one advocacy group. In a new report, PEN America said the federal government has emerged in 2025 as the newest force fueling campaigns to restrict materials related to race, racism and LGBTQ+ issues. There were 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts in the 2024-2025 school year, the report said. PEN America works to promote freedom of expression in the literary space. According to the report, which was released on Wednesday ahead of Banned Books Week (Oct.

5 to 11), Florida had the highest number of book bans with 2,304, followed by Texas with 1,781 bans and Tennessee with 1,622. "A disturbing 'everyday banning' and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread over the last four years. The result is unprecedented," said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America's Freedom to Read program. These books top PEN America's list of the books most often challenged and banned from school classrooms in the U.S. during the 2024-2025 school year. PEN America hide caption

PEN America released its list of the most-banned books of the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday – and warned that the number of books challenged or banned in public school districts across the country... The group dedicated to free expression counted 6,870 bans during the past academic year. While that's down from a total of 10,046 bans imposed during the 2023-24 school year, it's still a sharp rise from the period of 2021-2023, which averaged just under 3,000 incidents of book banning... PEN America defines a school book ban as "any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct... According to the new report, the most-banned book in the country in the 2023-24 school year was Anthony Burgess' 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange, followed by Patricia McCormick's 2006 young adult title Sold,... The third book on the list is Jennifer Niven's YA coming-of-age novel Breathless.

A free speech advocacy group warned that book censorship in public schools across the United States has become "rampant and common," with book bans increasing significantly over the last few years. Though book censorship is not a new issue, the United States has seen a sharp rise in book bans and attempted bans since 2021. PEN America's “Banned in the USA" report, released on Oct. 1, recorded about 6,800 instances of books being removed from schools during the 2024-2025 academic year. While the new number is down from the more than 10,000 bans reported in the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America noted that it was still an uptick from previous years when the advocacy group... Since July 2021, PEN America has documented more than 22,800 cases of book bans across 45 states and 451 public school districts.

According to the report, the systematic removal of books from schools and school libraries in many parts of the country has resulted in the "normalization and routinization of censorship" in public education. PEN America cited "alarming censorship pressures" on school districts, including recent federal efforts to restrict education, continued attacks on LGBTQ+ identities, and state-mandated book bans. Just days after President Donald Trump took office in January, the U.S. Department of Education called book bans a "hoax" and rescinded all department guidance that had suggested school districts' "removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws." PEN America's latest report shows nearly 23,000 book bans in US public schools since 2021 and nearly 7,000 in the 2024-2025 year. Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED.

She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. In the run up to Banned Books Week, October 5-11, PEN America has released their latest report on book bans over the last school year. Their findings continue to highlight what anti-censorship have been saying for years: the attacks are getting bigger, going higher, and continuing to happen at a whirlwind pace. Before exploring the information in “The Normalization of Book Banning,” it’s worth providing a couple of important details.

First: PEN defines a book ban as the removal of a book from the school shelves. This ban may be temporary or permanent; the removal is counted as a ban, as the material is unavailable for use. Second: PEN’s numbers are from reports of school book bans reported directly to them and those reported in the media. This means that there are likely additional book bans happening in schools, done either through quiet/silent censorship and/or simply not reported or accounted for. The data does not include books banned in public libraries nor prisons. So what does the latest report find?

Starting at the top level, PEN found that since 2021, nearly 23,000 titles have been banned across 45 states and 451 public school districts. NEW YORK (AP) — A new report on book bans in U.S. schools finds Stephen King as the author most likely to be censored and the country divided between states actively restricting works and those attempting to limit or eliminate bans. PEN America’s “Banned in the USA,” released Wednesday, tracks more than 6,800 instances of books being temporarily or permanently pulled for the 2024-2025 school year. The new number is down from more than 10,000 in 2023-24, but still far above the levels of a few years ago, when PEN didn’t even see the need to compile a report. Some 80% of those bans originated in just three states that have enacted or attempted to enact laws calling for removal of books deemed objectionable — Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

Meanwhile, PEN found little or no instances of removals in several other states, with Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey among those with laws that limit the authority of school and public libraries to pull... “It is increasingly a story of two countries,” says Kasey Meehan, director of PEN’s Freedom to Read program and an author of Wednesday’s report. “And it’s not just a story of red states and blue states. In Florida, not all of the school districts responded to the calls for banning books. You can find differences from county to county.” King’s books were censored 206 times, according to PEN, with “Carrie” and “The Stand” among the 87 of his works affected.

The most banned work of any author was Anthony Burgess’ Dystopian classic from the 1960s, “A Clockwork Orange,” for which PEN found 23 removals. Other books and authors facing extensive restrictions included Patricia McCormick’s “Sold,” Judy Blume’s “Forever” and Jennifer Niven’s “Breathless,” and numerous works by Sarah J. Maas and Jodi Picoult. It’s official – and very depressing: Stephen King is the most banned author in US schools, according to a new report on book bans. PEN America’s "The Normalization of Book Banning - Banned in the USA 2024-2025”, published today, tracks 6,870 instances of books being temporarily or permanently pulled for the 2024-2025 school year across 23 states and... The report, which examines the climate of censorship between 1 July 2024 through 30 June 2025, states that in 2025, book censorship in the US is “rampant and common” and that “never before in...

The report adds: “Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.” Some 80% of the bans originated in just three states that have enacted or attempted to enact laws calling for removal of books deemed objectionable: Florida, Texas and Tennessee. In News by Porter AndersonOctober 2, 2025 The leading message of this year’s PEN America ‘Banned in the USA’ report is about an insidious rise in ‘normalization’ of censorship.

<img decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-212500 lazyload" src="https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/710-top-image-for-PEN-America-2025-report-ftw.jpg" alt="" width="710" height="468" srcset="https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/710-top-image-for-PEN-America-2025-report-ftw.jpg 710w, https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/710-top-image-for-PEN-America-2025-report-ftw-300x198.jpg 300w, https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/710-top-image-for-PEN-America-2025-report-ftw-100x66.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 710px) 100vw, 710px" /> Image: PEN America By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson <img decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-91734 lazyload" src="https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PEN-America-logo-lined-300x126.png" alt="" width="250" height="105" srcset="https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PEN-America-logo-lined-300x126.png 300w, https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PEN-America-logo-lined-100x42.png 100w, https://publishingperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PEN-America-logo-lined.png 406w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />Classifying the year between July 2024 and June 2025 as “the fourth school year of... FILE - Aisles of bookshelves at Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. (Photo by: Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) An annual report on book bans in U.S.

schools finds that 80% of the nearly 7,000 books banned for the 2024-2025 school year took place in just three states. The report, called "Banned in the USA," was released Wednesday by PEN America. The three states that have removed or attempted to remove the most books in the past year are Florida, Texas and Tennessee. Florida was the No. 1 state for book bans, with 2,304 instances of bans, followed by Texas with 1,781 bans and Tennessee with 1,622. PEN America's latest Freedom to Write Index, its sixth annual report tracking the detention and imprisonment of writers, found that the number of writers jailed worldwide reached a new high in 2024.

Per the report, at least 375 writers were jailed in 40 countries during 2024, up from 339 in 2023. The report found that China, already the world's top jailer of writers, posted a significant increase of 11 cases, to 118 writers behind bars. And Iran once again had the second highest number of imprisoned writers at 43. Together, China and Iran jailed a combined 43% of the total count. Saudi Arabia landed at #3 on the list with 23 writers jailed. Vietnam, Israel, Russia, Turkiye, Belarus, Egypt, and Myamar rounded out the top 10.

The report noted that war and conflict continued to have a negative impact on writers in 2024, attributing upticks in the number of imprisoned writers in Israel and Russia to crackdowns on dissent. The report also noted that "recent developments in the United States underscore the precarious nature of freedom of expression," adding that "the suppression of free expression has taken on an especially troubling dimension on... Constitution." New to PW? To set up immediate access, click here.

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