According to a recent investigation, Texas banned 801 books in total during the past year. These works covered a wide variety of topics, from the alleged ‘Queer agenda’ to those with people of colour.
Unfortunately, Texas is not the only state with book restrictions. Florida outlawed 566 titles, Pennsylvania removed 457 from classrooms, and Tennessee revoked 349 titles. Between June 2021 and July 2022, there were 2,532 cases of specific books across the nation; 1,648 different books were outlawed in 138 school districts in 32 states.
According to Pen America’s report, ‘Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools,’ these prohibitions had an enormous impact on four million students and 5,049 schools.
The 1,648 banned books include:
- 674 that had LGBTQ+ themes, 659 had people of colour as protagonists,
- 338 dealt with the issue of racism,
- 357 contained sexual content; like stories of teen pregnancy, sexual assault, abortions, sex, relationships and even ‘informational books about puberty’
- 161 had themes of rights and activism
- Also banned were 141 memoirs, biographies, autobiographies
- And 64 had religious minority characters.
Around 75% of these were fiction, 24% were non-fiction, and the final 1% were poems. Even children’s picture books weren’t exempt from this.
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