Banned Books Week begins with mixed messages as reports show both upside and downside challenges

NEW YORK — Two reports released Monday offer a mixed but compelling look at the wave of book removals and challenges that have come with the start of Banned Books Week, an annual holiday for schools, stores and libraries across the country.

The American Library Association found a significant drop in complaints and objections about books stocked in public, school, and academic libraries so far in 2024. Meanwhile, PEN America documents an explosion in the number of books removed from school shelves in 2023-24, tripling from the previous year to over 10,000. In Florida and Iowa alone, where laws restricting the content of books have been enacted, just over 8,000 books were removed.

It cannot be said that the two surveys contradict each other.

The library association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom has recorded 414 objections in the first eight months of 2024, with 1,128 different titles criticized. The office counted 695 cases involving 1,915 books during the same period last year. The ALA relies on media accounts and reports from librarians and has long acknowledged that many objections may not be included because librarians have already withheld or declined to acquire a potentially controversial book.

Challenges have reached record levels over the past few years, and the 2024 totals still exceed the ALA’s pre-2020 figures. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, also cautioned that the figures predate the start of the fall school year, when suspended laws in Iowa are set to go back into effect.

“Reports continue to come in from Iowa,” he said. “And we expect that to continue through the end of the year.”

The library association defines an “objection” as “a formal, written complaint to a library or school requesting that materials be removed for reasons of content or appropriateness.” The ALA does not keep exact numbers on how many books are actually withdrawn.

According to PEN, bans are collected through local media reports, “school district websites and school board minutes, as well as organizational partners such as the Florida Freedom to Read Project and Let Utah Read.” The library association relies primarily on local media and accounts from public librarians. And the two organizations have different definitions of “ban,” which is a key reason why their numbers vary so widely. For the ALA, a ban is the permanent removal of a book from a library’s collection. If hundreds of books are pulled from a library for review and then returned, they are not counted as banned but are listed as a single “challenge.”

For PEN, any length of withdrawal will be considered a ban.

“When access to a book is restricted, even for a short time, it’s a restriction on freedom of speech and freedom of expression,” says Kasey Meehan, who directs PEN’s Freedom to Read program.

The ALA and PEN say many of the targeted books have racial or LGBTQIA+ themes, whether it’s Meir Kobabe’s “The Gender Queen,” Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye” or Jonathan Evison’s “Grass Boy.” While some complaints have come from liberals who object to racist language in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and other older works, the vast majority have come from conservatives and organizations like Moms for Liberty.

An Iowa law passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature last year bans school libraries from holding books depicting sexual acts. The law also requires schools to post their library collections online and provide instructions to parents on how to request that books or other materials be removed. Many districts already have such systems in place.

A federal judge in December issued a temporary stay on key parts of the law after LGBTQIA+ youth, teachers and major publishers filed legal challenges, but a federal appeals court last month lifted that order in an order allowing challengers to seek a new block.

Records requests from Iowa’s 325 districts by the Des Moines Register showed that about 3,400 books were removed from school libraries to comply with the law before it was halted. In Davenport, one of Iowa’s 10 largest districts serving more than 12,000 students, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Kabobe’s “Gender Queer” and Morrison’s “Bluest Eye” were among the nine books removed from circulation.

After the law was passed, school staff were instructed to review books available to students and in their care, district communications director Sarah Ott wrote in an email.

According to Ott, “If any books were identified early on as having the potential to violate the new law, building staff would forward the books to the district for formal review.” The district uses a process already in place to review materials and ensure compliance with the law.

Banned Books Week, which runs through Sunday, was founded in 1982 and features readings and exhibitions of banned works. It is supported by the ALA, PEN, the Authors Guild, the National Book Foundation and more than a dozen other organizations. Filmmaker Ava Duvernay was named president emeritus, and Julia Garnett, a student activist who opposed prohibition in her home state of Tennessee, is youth president emeritus. Garnett was among 15 “Girls Leading Change” honored by first lady Jill Biden at a White House ceremony last fall.

“We celebrate Banned Books Week, but we don’t celebrate it,” Caldwell-Stone said. “Banned books are the exact opposite of the freedoms promised by the First Amendment.”