Nearly 12,000 books banned in US schools in one year, with Stephen King's books removed the most
Nearly 12,000 books have been banned in schools in the United States over the past year. The figure comes from a report by PEN America, an organisation that works on freedom of expression.
According to the report, this is the highest number of bans since the organisation began keeping count of school book bans five years ago. For the second year in a row, author Stephen King has faced the most bans.
The report found a total of 11,982 instances of books being banned. Those instances cover 7,370 separate titles. More than 4,500 of those books appeared on the banned list for the first time this year.
The banned books include the nineteenth-century novel Jane Eyre and Sui Ishida's manga series Tokyo Ghoul.
Books by Stephen King were removed 312 times. They include his novels The Shining and The Green Mile.
As a single title, the book facing the most bans was Sold by Patrick McCormick. PEN America found 25 removals of the novel, which tells the story of a girl sold into sexual slavery in India.
Also on the banned list are Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and Ellen Hopkins's Crank. Speak tells the story of a teenage girl who stops speaking after being raped, while Crank deals with drug addiction.
Florida and Texas saw the highest number of book bans. Both states have passed laws imposing restrictions on books. Politicians and conservative groups have also demanded that various books be removed from schools.
The report also notes that school authorities are increasingly using artificial intelligence, or AI, to select which books should be removed.
The subjects cited most often behind book bans were race, racism, sexuality and gender identity.
PEN America's report, titled 'Banned in the USA', says school libraries give students the chance to gain knowledge and encounter a range of opinions and ideas. When books are banned, students are deprived of different kinds of writing, opinions and viewpoints, and their freedom to read is also obstructed.
Both PEN America and the American Library Association say book bans in the United States have risen sharply since the early 2020s. Their counting methods differ, however: PEN America counts a book as banned even if it is removed temporarily, while the American Library Association counts only permanent removals. According to the association's report published in April, the number of book ban instances in the previous year was about 5,600.
