The American Library Association said book bannings, attempted book bannings, along with threats against librarians soared over the past year. The ALA released the findings in their "State of America's Libraries Report for 2022."
The report tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. Those challenges resulted in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals.
According to the ALA's report, the most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.
The Top 10 most challenged books, per the ALA, included:
- "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe
- "Lawn Boy" by Jonathan Evison
- "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson
- "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Perez
- "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
- "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie
- "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews
- "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
- "This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson
- "Beyond Magenta" by Susan Kuklin
Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy” while signing a law that would force elementary schools to provide a searchable list of every book available in their libraries or used in instruction and allow parents, DeSantis said, “to blow the whistle.”
