PEN America: US school book bans at record 11,982; Stephen King most banned author

Mixed · 2PEN America's new report, "Banned in the USA", found 11,982 book bans in US public schools over the past year, affecting 7,370 individual works, the highest total since the group began tracking removals. 1 2 Left · 1Stephen King was the most banned author for the second straight year, with his books pulled 312 times, including "The Shining" and "The Green Mile". 1 Left · 1The most banned single title was Patrick McCormick's "Sold", with 25 removals; other commonly targeted books include "The Handmaid's Tale", "Speak" and "Crank". 1

Mixed · 2More than 4,500 of the titles were on the list for the first time, ranging from "Jane Eyre" to the manga series "Tokyo Ghoul"; Newsweek also lists "Lessons in Chemistry" among them. 1 2 Mixed · 2Florida and Texas account for many of the bans. Newsweek reports PEN found more than 8,000 in Texas and over 3,000 in Florida in 2025-26, and PEN calls the two states "blueprints for educational censorship". 1 2 Centre · 1PEN says 114 school districts imposed bans, the most it has recorded, and that 72 percent of tracked districts' bans are linked to state laws or policies. More than half of banned books were young-adult titles and over 80 percent were fiction. 2

Mixed · 2Themes of race, racism, sexuality and gender identity remain the most common reasons books are challenged, and PEN highlights growing targeting of manga and graphic novels. 1 2 Mixed · 2PEN also found school administrators increasingly using AI to decide which books to pull. According to Newsweek, public records show some AI systems recommended removal simply because books had been banned elsewhere, which PEN says could fuel a "snowball effect". 1 2 Mixed · 2PEN argues that bans "impede the freedom to read" and cut students' access to diverse views. Supporters of removals reject the censorship label, saying parents and communities should have more say and that the issue is age-appropriateness, particularly for sexual content; Texas' SB 13 requires districts to review "indecent" or "profane" material. 1 2

Left · 1The report's total differs from the American Library Association's, whose April report counted about 5,600 instances, because PEN counts books removed even briefly while the ALA counts only permanent removals. The PEN report was released during Banned Books Week. 1 Centre · 1Newsweek adds opposition from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, and authors Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume, and says it contacted PEN America and Moms for Liberty for comment. 2