Renewing the fight against book banning
Books featuring LGBTQ youth, people of color are most often targets for those banning books This week marks Banned Books Week, the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read.
But this year feels more like a call to action than a celebration. Book bans and other attempts at censorship, largely targeting the LGBTQ and other marginalized communities, are raging across the country.
Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 this year, the ALA documented 681 attempts to ban or restrict a total of 1,651 unique titles — already superseding 2021’s 1,597 titles and on track to pass its 729 attempts, the highest number since ALA began tracking the numbers more than 20 years ago.
Additionally, more than 70 percent of the attempts in 2022 involve multiple titles; previously, the vast majority only sought to remove or restrict a single book.
