The most commonly prohibited books in US schools. UU. Include LGBTQ titles, international bestsellers, novels of Romantas and Adolescents and a 1962 classic, according to a new report comparing modern censorship with the McCarthyism of the cold war era.
More than 6,800 book prohibitions were promulgated during the 2024-25 school year in 87 public school districts in 23 states, according to a report published Wednesday by Pen America, a non-profit organization that advocates free expression. The report was published before Banned Books week, which begins on Sunday.
“Censorship pressures have expanded and increased,” said Kasey Meehan, director of the Pen America’s Freedom to Read program, in a press release. “A ‘daily prohibition’ and the normalization of censorship have worsened and extended in the last four years.”
The annual organization of the “prohibited in the United States” says that the current environment of “prohibition of unrestricted books recalls the red scare of the 1950s.” It defines a prohibition of the school book as “any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of the challenges of the parents or the community, administrative decisions or in response to direct or threatened action of government officials” that leads to the book eliminated or restricted.
The last report found that 3,752 unique titles were affected by the prohibitions in the school year that ended in June. The most prohibited titles included “Clockwork Orange” and “WICKED”, while the most prohibited authors included Stephen King, Sarah J. Maas and Jodi Picault. More than 80% of all prohibitions originated in just three states: Florida, Texas and Tennessee.
This last school year he saw less total prohibitions than in 2023-24, in more than 10,000, although the number is well above where he was in 2021-22 (more than 2,500 prohibitions), when Pen America began compiling an annual report. Since July 2021, Pen America has tracked 22,810 book prohibitions in 45 states.
A reason why the total number of book prohibitions may have presented this year is that some titles are being taken from the shelves.
“This works as a form of ‘obeying in advance’ to the anticipated restrictions of the State or the administrative authorities, rooted in fear or simply a desire to avoid issues that can be considered controversial,” says the report.
Another potential reason, as the author Malinda said, is that the previously prohibited titles have not returned to the shelves. The, whose book “Last night on the Telegraph Club” was number 4 in the new Pen America list, he said on Instagram that his 2021 novel made the cut “partly because all the usual titles such as ‘Queer genre’ have already been prohibited and eliminated.”
“Once a book was prohibited, it was gone,” he wrote on Wednesday. “That is why we have to continue fighting these attacks against our rights of the first amendment.”
“Queer Gender”, a graphic memory that debuted in 2019, was number 1 in the list of most prohibited books of Pen America in 2022, although it did not even reach the best 15 on this year’s list.
The books with LGBTQ songs and characters, such as “Queer genre” and “Last night at the Telegraph Club”, are consistently among the most prohibited books highlighted in the annual reports of Pen America and the American Library Association, and this year it is not different.
Here are the 15 most prohibited books in the last school year, as traced by Pen America, classified in order of those prohibited by the most public school districts throughout the country:
‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess
Burgess’s dystopian satire about a socioptical leader and obsessed with the adolescent gang with Beethoven was banned in 23 districts in the 2024-25 school year. The 1962 novel was adapted to a Oscar -nominated film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971 and was named one of Time’s best novels in English and one of the 100 best Modern Library novels.
‘Breathless’ by Jennifer Niven
The Niven 2020 novel is a love story at the age of majority that was prohibited in 20 school districts. On her website, the author Superventas describes “Breathless” as “the book he needed when he was sixteen, seventeen years old, eighteen.
‘Sold’ by Patricia McCormick
McCormick’s young adult novel, about a Nepal girl who sells to sexual slavery in India, was prohibited in 20 school districts in the last school year. This 2006 title was a finalist of the National Book Award and was on the weekly list of the best books of the year of the publishing house and the list of the ten best books for young adults in Ala.
‘Last night at the telegraph club’ by Malinda Lo
The young and adult historical novel about love and duty in the 1950s, San Francisco was prohibited in 19 school districts in the 2024-25 school year. The 2021 novel acclaimed by critics won a long list of awards, which includes a National Book Award, Stonewall Book Award and the American Asian Prize/Pacific of Literature.
‘A court of fog and fury’ by Sarah J. Maas
This novel by Romantasy for best-selling adults, which was prohibited in 18 districts in the 2024-25 school year, is the second book of the series “A court of thorns and roses” of Maas. Maas, the only author with more than one title on this list of the 15 main ones, also has the distinction of being one of the most prohibited authors this year, with 162 total prohibitions, only behind Stephen King and the author of “crankshaft” Ellen Hopkins.
‘Crank’ by Ellen Hopkins
Hopkins’s young adult novel was prohibited in 17 school districts. On her website, the author revealed that this sales success is freely based on the “addiction story of her eldest daughter to glass methamphetamine.” She said that “crankshaft” began as “a personal exploration of ‘why’ behind my daughter’s decisions and what role could I have played in them.”
‘Forever …’ By Judy Blume
The award -winning novel by young adults of 1975 of Blume, which was prohibited in 17 districts in the last school year, has been a target of censorship for 50 years, according to Pen America. Blume said he wrote the book, which was named one of the 100 best NPR teenage novels and the 100 best books of all time, because his daughter “asked for a story about two pleasant children who have sex without any of them having to die.”
‘The advantages of being an Alhelí’ by Stephen Chbosky
Chbosky’s majority novel in 2009 on an observer “Wallfower” that navigates the “strange world between adolescence and adulthood” was prohibited in 17 school districts in the 2024-25 school districts. The success of sales number 1 of the New York Times, which deals with issues that include the first quotes, family drama, sex, drugs and suicide, adapted to a 2012 film starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller.
‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire
This sales success No. 1 of the New York Times, which debuted in 1995 and is a reinvented prequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, was prohibited in 17 school districts. However, the story of “Wicked” is perhaps better known due to its adaptation to a Broadway musical of Tony winning and a Oscar -winning musical film starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
‘All boys are not blue’ by George M. Johnson
The manifesto of Johnson’s 2020 memoirs about the age of major But we cannot order, but we cannot order the bannings.
‘A court of thorns and roses’ by Sarah J. Maas
The first book of the Romantas and five -selling books of Maas was, as the remaining books on this list, prohibited in 16 school districts. The central character in “A Court of Thorns and Roses” of 2015 is Feyre, 19, a moral jacket that is dragged to a magical land and falls by its immortal captor.
‘Damisela’ by Elana K. Arnold
This dark and twisted fairy tale, a book of honor of the Michael L. Printz 2019 award, is, on the surface, on a damsel that is rescued from a dragon by a handsome prince. Before “Damsel”, Arnold’s book “What Girls Are Made Are de” was the finalist of the National Book Award 2017 in the literature of young people.
‘The Duff’ by Kody Keplinger
In Keplinger’s young adult novel, Bianca, 17, discovers that the “viscous school hottie” of his secondary school “has given him an offensive nickname, Duff or a designated ugly fat friend, but still ends in an” relationship enemies with benefits “with him. Kepler was only 17 years old when he wrote this book Superventas, which adapted to a film of 2015.
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult
This sales success No. 1 of the New York Times is about the sequelae of a shooting at school in a small city in New Hampshire. Published in 2007, this is one of the 29 novels written by Picoult, whose other works include “My Sister’s Keeper”, “Small Great Things” and “The Pact”.
‘Storm and fury’ by Jennifer L. Armetrout
Armetrout Romantasy 2019 is the first book of its “Harbinger” series of three books. “Storm and Fury” focuses on Trinity Marrow, 18, who “can be blind” but “can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits,” according to the Armetrout website.
