The 2025-2026 school year experienced a record number of book bans, according to a new report from PEN America.
Public schools across the country saw 12,000 book bans during that time period, the largest number in a single year since PEN America began tracking in 2021. The organization attributes the high number to an increase in state censorship laws, as well as an increase in the use of AI technology to determine which books to ban.
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“Political pressure goes beyond legislation, too,” the report pointed out. “Politicians increasingly pressure districts to ban books by sending threatening letters, putting administrators through hearings, or other measures that lead to overcompliance.”
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Another record last year: the number of unique titles banned, which reached over 7,000 and impacted a record 4,000 authors, translators, and illustrators. 2025-2026 also saw the highest number of school districts (114) that banned books in a single year.
The majority of banned books were Young Adult fiction, which the report points out is “stripping young readers away from the books that help them fall in love with reading.”
Most of the books banned also focused on “race and racism, LGBTQ+ people or characters, people or characters of color, and sex.”
The majority of bans came from Florida and Texas, with the former seeing 3,212 bans and the latter a whopping 8,193.
The most banned book last school year: Sold by Patricia McCormick, a 2006 novel about a Nepalese teenager sold into sexual slavery.
“Mostly I feel angry on behalf of the women that I interviewed for the story: young women who’ve been sold into sexual slavery, who told their stories so the world could know what was going on,” McCormick told PEN America. “To hear people, or book banners, say that their accounts are pornographic is so disrespectful to them. It’s also really disrespectful to the students who seek out that book.”
“There are kids who need a book like that because they have some kind of sexual exploitation experience in their own life, and there’s something about reading a story about someone who’s six degrees away from you – a girl in Nepal – that inspires a certain amount of empathy and understanding that you might not have for yourself.”
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, called book banning “exceptionally tragic” at a time “when reading for pleasure is in decline across all ages.”
“Schools should be doing everything possible to connect kids with reading by introducing them to engaging stories and formats,” Meehan said. “Instead, many are doing the opposite, banning books that help kids see themselves in literature, deepen their understanding and empathy of others, and develop their imaginations.”
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