In case you missed it, Banned Books Week is October 4-10, 2026.
Book banning is at unprecedented levels in the USA, so it strikes me as odd that nothing about it popped up in my news feed until today. Shame on me for coming to the party a day late.
As with every Banned Books Week You Can’t Read That! post, I’ll start with my annual defense of calling book banning by its proper name:
YCRT! Annual Banned Books Week Rant
If you’re new to me and my blog, you should know I’m passionate about books and the freedom to read. For years I’ve posted semi-regular news roundups about book banning and censorship, along with reviews of books targeted by the torch & pitchfork mob.
Every year those who want to ban books line up to tell us Banned Books Week is a hoax. Books aren’t banned in the USA, they claim. We’re just protecting the children! Restricting access to age-inappropriate literature is not book banning!
They hate words like ban, banning, and banned. In the years I’ve been writing these YCRT! posts, more than one reader has called me a liar for saying that’s what they’re up to.
That’s exactly what they’re up to.
In the USA, not a week goes by without parents in one state or another mobbing school board meetings to demand the removal of books from reading lists and libraries. Not a week goes by without some politician or administrator ordering books taken off public library shelves. New to the equation, Americans now live under a presidential administration which actively removes and bans books from Department of Defense schools, military academies, and professional reading lists published for military members (not to mention book racks at museums and national park gift shops) — and which would like to extend that level of control to civilian schools, colleges, public libraries, even commercial bookstores.
Regardless of whether books banned in some schools or libraries remain available on-line or in bookstores, the intent of those who call for removing or restricting access to them is to keep us from reading them. That’s banning. And so says Merriam-Webster — look it up.
Our government no longer bans books at the national level, but it used to. Henry Miller’s novel Tropic of Cancer, for example, was banned from its publication in 1934 until the Supreme Court overruled the ban in 1964. Even during the days when it and other books were officially banned, though, conservatives argued that such books weren’t really banned because you could always board an ocean liner, sail to Paris, and buy copies there. Conservatives today offer an updated version of the same argument: you can buy “Gender Queer” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” from Amazon, so what’s the problem with removing them from the children’s section of the library?
Book banners want to control what we read. They may no longer be able to ban books nationwide, but they’ll do whatever they can to get books they disapprove of removed from libraries, bookstores, and classrooms. When they succeed, banned books are the result. Ban, banned, banning: these are the correct words, and that is why I use them.
Yes, Virginia, books are still being banned, even in the freedom-loving USA. It has always happened. It continues to happen, now more than ever. When people quit trying to prevent me or my children from reading books they don’t like, I’ll quit using the word, but not until then.
YCRT! News Roundup
Pen America: Nearly 12,000 School Book Bans in a Year, a Record High (AP)
Nearly 12,000 bans took place in public schools over the past year, according to a new study from PEN America, the highest total since the free expression organization began tracking removals five years ago. For the second straight year, Stephen King was the author most likely to have his work withdrawn.
Lies About Libraries (ALA Intellectual Freedom Blog)
A three-part series debunking false claims used to undermine trust in libraries and attack those who work in them.
“Every book on this list is a reminder that readers have the right to explore ideas and decide for themselves what to read,” said ALA President Maria McCauley. “For 150 years, ALA has worked alongside library workers to keep that choice open to everyone. We ask for support for our libraries so the next generation has that same freedom.”
For This Utah School Board, Book Ban Decisions Are Now Considered ‘Routine’ Business — No Public Discussion Necessary (Salt Lake Tribune)
Book banning has become so “routine” in the Davis School District, state officials concluded its school board doesn’t need to publicly discuss appeals that get sent their way.
Free Speech Groups Warn New Education Orders Will Expand Book Bans (Bradenton Herald)
A national free speech group is concerned that a new directive from Florida’s education chief could worsen Florida’s “troubling book censorship” problem. Education Commissioner Henry Mack said in a Sept. 23 memo that superintendents and charter school leaders must continuously audit books to ensure there are none that have sexually explicit material. Before, book removals came after a parent submitted a complaint to a school board for review.
Critics Call Out Metro Atlanta School Board’s Ban of Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ (Capital B News)
On Sept. 17, Cobb County Schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced at a school board meeting that The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was officially banned from the district. Citing sexually explicit content in the book, Ragsdale read aloud a passage from the novel where the protagonist is raped by her father.
Oregon Library Book Challenges Rise 20% with Focus on Protected Groups (Salem Statesman Journal)
Challenges continue to disproportionately focus on content by or about individuals who belong to a protected class under Oregon law, the report said. The report said 67% of challenge incidents and 67% of challenged materials focused on one or more protected classes, including age, color, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.
Library Board Zeros in on Book with Image of Mating Insects (nola.com)
The St. Tammany Parish Library Board of Control voted Sept. 28 to continue restricting children’s access to seven books because of sexual content, despite objections from a handful of residents who said the books should be returned to the general collection. The most discussed book during the meeting was “Insectopolis,” a graphic novel that was restricted because it includes an image of grasshoppers mating.
Missouri Supreme Court Hears Case on Constitutionality of Book Ban Law (School Library Journal)
The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments on whether a state law regulating which materials are allowed in school libraries is constitutional. The law, enacted in 2022, prohibits any person affiliated with a public or private elementary or secondary school from providing “explicit sexual material,” as defined in the statute, to students. Its enactment led to hundreds of books being pulled from school shelves.
Cops Now Required at This N.J. School Board’s Meetings After Controversial Book Sparks Firestorm (nj.com)
The Readington Township Board of Education will station a police officer at meetings for the remainder of the year to help ensure board members and the community feel safe during heated conversations. Board President David Rizza announced the change at the end of the Sept. 8 meeting, after a heated debate over whether the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” should be removed from the library.
Bots Attacking & Scraping Library Catalogs (ALA Intellectual Freedom Blog)
Library workers rely on search statistics for a variety of reasons. The two most prominent are 1) informing catalog search training to aid library users with discovery, and 2) informing collection development, so that authors and titles sought but not found by users can be added to the collection in order to meet their needs. Bot traffic corrupts this valuable dataset rendering it unusable if noticed. Worse, when bot traffic isn’t detected, it could lead to the library purchasing items that were spam searched by bots, but not sought out by library users, misdirecting library resrouces.