The American Library Association (ALA) has reported a record high in the number of books banned in US libraries in 2025, with 5,668 titles removed from shelves. This represents 66 per cent of all challenged books, while a further 920 faced access restrictions such as relocation within libraries.
The most-banned book was Sold, a 2006 novel by Patricia McCormick about sex trafficking in India. Other frequently challenged titles include The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas. The ALA recorded challenges against 4,235 unique titles, the second-highest figure since tracking began over 30 years ago, behind only 4,240 titles in 2023.
Forty per cent of challenged materials involved representations of LGBTQ+ people or people of colour. The ALA noted that challenges are increasingly coordinated and politically driven: 92 per cent came from pressure groups, decision-makers or government officials, compared with 72 per cent in 2024. Only 2.7 per cent were attributed to parents and 1.4 per cent to individual library users.
Sarah Lamdan, executive director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, stated that book bans were not the result of concerned parents or grassroots efforts, but part of a well-funded campaign to suppress stories of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals. The ALA defines a challenge as an attempt to remove or restrict a resource, while a ban means actual removal.
Several US states, including Florida, Texas and Utah, have passed laws limiting or removing books from schools, targeting content about sexual orientation, gender identity, or material considered “harmful to minors”. In Iowa, an appellate court recently allowed a law restricting discussion of LGBTQ+ topics in certain grades and banning some books.
