Restricted reading
New data from the American Library Association (ALA) reveals that the number of attempts to ban books nearly doubled in the US last year, with 1,269 restrictive challenges waged against reading materials and other resources in America’s public and school libraries.
The number of unique titles affected by banning efforts is rocketing too, with challengers broadening their scopes — 40% of books targeted were in motions relating to 100+ titles.
Bans in the USA
The vast majority of 2022’s challenged titles are written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color. And, while book banning in the US isn’t a new phenomenon, the current surge is part of what’s being labeled an “era like none other in the country’s history” — linked, inextricably, with the rise in political polarization across the country.
That sentiment is firmly supported by the ALA’s latest figures — the Association has been gathering data on censorship in US libraries for over 20 years, but it’s only since the pandemic that attempts to ban books have properly taken off. With thousands of public and school libraries shuttered during Covid, attempts to blacklist books fell to a 20-year low. Banners have hit the books hard since, with demands rising sharply in the last 2 years.
