Banned Books: Protect The Freedom To Read

“Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read” was the theme for this year’s Banned Books Week, which took place from Oct. 4 to Oct. 10. The worldwide celebration and protest was launched in 1982 by the American Library Association (ALA) and Judith F. Krug after seeing the surge of book banning in schools, libraries, and bookstores. In the past few years, with the growth of BookTok and the rebirth of the publishing industry, the push to police all of these books has also increased. However, as always, when there is oppression and forced silence, people have stood up to save our stories, and thus came Banned Books Week. 

In addition to the ALA, to try and help combat the censorship of banned books, Penguin Random House, a big-five publisher located in New York City, had its fourth annual Banned Wagon Tour, which featured over 50 different banned books. Penguin Random House visited all five boroughs of New York City with book options for children, teens, and adults, before heading to Detroit and Chicago. The turnout for the event was incredible, with lines down the street even in the last 30 minutes, and many books selling out.  

Taking a look at the metrics behind book bans.

If we’re analyzing book censorship by the numbers, then we’re in a genuine crisis of our integral stories being lost. This past school year (2025-2026) saw a record number of banned books, measuring up to 7,370 unique titles. Of these 7,370 books, nearly 60% of them were under the young adult fiction umbrella, proving a growing trend over the past decade to shelter and censor our youth. Of the rest of these titles, 26% were adult fiction, and 16% were children’s fiction. Thousands of these banned books in all of the age categories consistently include stories about race, ethnicity, and gender, or follow characters who are people of color or LGBTQIA+. While this is not shocking, it is sad to see that even in 2026, we are still silencing those with marginalized stories. Most of this censorship and oppression stems from political pressure. According to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, across the United States of America, 72% of the bans were due to state legislation, with Texas and Florida leading as the states with the most book bans. 

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but censorship is only accelerating with the use of artificial intelligence (AI). With AI’s acceptance into society over recent years and its ability to comb through data at a rapid rate, book bans will increase immensely. This is very concerning because AI searches for keywords from the legislators and state departments of education that are deemed “concerning,” and schools have used AI to ban these titles simply off the synopsis and summary without any logic, nuance, or critical thinking. A robot cannot feel why these stories and themes are appropriate for the classroom or library; it is simply running off of keywords with no context. 

A look at the most frequently banned books in recent school years.

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Sold by Patricia McCormick
3. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
4. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
5. Looking for Alaska by John Green
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
7. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

• advocacy
• banned books week
• books