Banned Books Week began in 1982 as a response to a rise in censorship and the growing number of challenged books within libraries, schools, and bookstores. The theme for Banned Books Week 2026 (October 4-10) is “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.”
Book bans are certainly not a new phenomenon; people have challenged or banned books since the beginning of the written word. Read on to discover the long history of censorship.
Banned Books by the Numbers
- ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second highest ever documented by ALA. The highest ever documented was 4,240 in 2023.
- Of the unique titles challenged in 2025, 1,671 (39%) represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
- ALA documented 713 attempts to censor library materials and services, 487 of which targeted books.
- In 2025, 92% of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials and decision makers, up from 72% in 2024. Less than 3% of challenges originated from individual parents.
- OIF documented 5,668 books banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged) in 2025. An additional 920 books were censored through access restrictions such as relocation or requiring parental permission. This is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship from 1990–2025.
Source: Banned Books Data (American Library Association)
Banned Books in Antiquity
- 213 BCE: Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all books, except those on agriculture, medicine and divination.
- 8 CE: The Roman poet Ovid was banished from Rome for writing "Ars Amatoria" (The Art of Love).
- 35 CE: The Roman emperor Caligula opposed the reading of "The Odyssey" by Homer.
- 640 CE: According to legend, the caliph Omar burned all 200,000 volumes in the library at Alexandria in Egypt.
- 1121: Peter Abelard was charged with Sabellianism by a local church council and made to burn his book "Theologia."
- 1497: Girolamo Savonarola ingited the great “bonfires of the vanities,” which destroyed books and paintings by some of the greatest artists of Florence.
- 1520: Pope Leo X demanded that Martin Luther renounce all of his writings, and when Luther refused to do so, excommunicated him in January 1521.
- 1524–26: Thousands of copies of William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament were printed in Germany and smuggled into England, where they were publicly burned in 1526 on the orders of London’s Roman Catholic bishop.
- 1559: Pope Paul IV established the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the definitive list of books that Roman Catholics were told not to read.
- 1597: Queen Elizabeth I orders that scenes depicting a king being deposed from his throne be removed from Shakespeare’s "Richard II."
- 1614: Sir Walter Raleigh’s book "The History of the World" was banned by King James I of England for “being too saucy in censuring princes.”
- 1616–42: Galileo’s theories about the solar system and his support of the discoveries of Copernicus were condemned by the Catholic Church.
- 1637: Thomas Morton’s "New English Canaan" became "America's first banned book" and Morton was nicknamed the “lord of misrule” by Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford.
- 1788: Shakespeare’s "King Lear" was banned from the stage until 1820 by King George III.
Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2025
Source: American Library Association
#1 - "Sold" by Patricia McCormick (2008)
Number of challenges: 36
Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.
He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.
An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.
Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words―Simply to endure is to triumph―and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision-will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? - Publisher's Description
#2 - "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky (2021)
Number of challenges: 33
Charlie is a freshman.
And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.
Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. - Publisher's Description
#3 - "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe (2019)
Number of challenges: 25
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, "Gender Queer" is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. - Publisher's Description
#4 - "Empire of Storms" (Throne of Glass, 5) by Sarah J. Maas (2016)
Number of challenges: 24
The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friends have been lost and gained, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those who don't.
With her heart sworn to the warrior-prince by her side, and her fealty pledged to the people she is determined to save, Aelin will delve into the depths of her power to protect those she loves. But as monsters emerge from the horrors of the past, and dark forces become poised to claim her world, the only chance for salvation will lie in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear. - Publisher's Description
#5 (Tied) - "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" by Malinda Lo (2021)
Number of challenges: 23
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly, everything seemed possible.
But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily.
With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
Meticulously researched, emotionally stirring, and startlingly brave, "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" is a standout work of historical fiction that has taken the world by storm. - Publisher's Description
#5 (tie) - "Tricks" by Ellen Hopkins (2017)
Number of challenges: 23
When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.
Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching…for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don’t expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.
Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story—a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, “Can I ever feel okay about myself?” - Publisher's Description
#7 - "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas (2015)
Number of challenges: 22
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
At least, he's not a beast all the time.
As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin-and his world-forever. - Publisher's Description
#8 (tie) - "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess (1962)
Number of challenges: 21
In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society.
Dazzling and transgressive, "A Clockwork Orange" is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. - Publisher's Description
#8 (tie) - "Identical" by Ellen Hopkins (2008)
Number of challenges: 21
In the latest hard-hitting YA novel by the New York Times bestselling author, sixteen-year-old identical twin girls must come to terms with their abusive father.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are sixteen-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for Congress. Everything on the surface of their lives seems Norman Rockwell perfect, but underneath run deep and damaging secrets. Kaeleigh is the good girl-her father's perfect flower, something she has tried so hard to be since she was nine and he started sexually abusing her. She cuts herself and vomits after every binge, desperate to feel something normal. Raeanne uses painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite. Both girls must figure out how to become whole, but how can they when their world has been torn to shreds?
Writing in her characteristic narrative poetry style, Ellen Hopkins shows once again how well she knows today's teens and the issues that matter to them. - Publisher's Description
#8 (tie) - "Looking for Alaska" by John Green (2005)
Number of challenges: 21
First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.
Last words.
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction. - Publisher's Description
#8 (tie) - "Storm and Fury" by Jennifer L. Armentrout (2019)
Number of challenges: 21
Eighteen-year-old Trinity Marrow may be going blind, but she can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. Her gift is the reason she’s been in hiding for years in a compound guarded by Wardens—shape-shifters who protect humankind from demons. If the demons discover the truth about Trinity, they’ll devour her to enhance their powers.
When Wardens from another clan arrive with reports that something is killing both demons and Wardens, Trinity’s world implodes. Not the least because one of the outsiders is the most annoying and fascinating person she’s ever met. Zayne has secrets of his own—but working together becomes imperative once demons breach the compound and Trinity’s secret comes to light. To save her family and maybe the world, she’ll have to trust Zayne. But all bets are off as a supernatural war is unleashed… - Publisher's Description
Feature image by Freddy Kearney on Unsplash.