UNITED STATES / RankWire.AI / – During the 2025-26 school year, a record number of book bans affected authors such as Margaret Atwood and Ryan North across American schools, with PEN America documenting 11,982 bans—marking the highest annual total since the organization began tracking in 2021. The data revealed that these bans involved 7,370 unique titles across 114 districts, impacting over 4,000 authors, illustrators, and translators, which underscores the expanding scope of school censorship.
Among the most frequently challenged books was Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, while North’s Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable Path Adventure appeared on the list for the first time. Notably, more than half of the banned titles were young-adult books, and fiction made up over 80% of all bans. The index also saw more than 4,500 titles appearing for the first time, further broadening the range of literature removed from students’ access.
The majority of these bans were concentrated in Texas and Florida, states with Republican leadership, which accounted for over 8,100 and 3,200 bans respectively. PEN America linked 72% of the bans in tracked districts to state legislation, highlighting the impact of laws such as Texas Senate Bill 13, enacted for the 2025-26 school year, which increased parental oversight over school library collections and established statewide standards to restrict materials deemed harmful, indecent, profane, or age-inappropriate. Proponents describe these policies as measures for parental control and child protection.
Conservative Politics Drive the Censorship Effort
The overall data indicates that the movement to ban books is more closely linked to organized conservative political efforts rather than individual parental complaints. Organizations like Moms for Liberty, Citizens Defending Freedom, and Parents’ Rights in Education have actively promoted book removals, with earlier PEN America research characterizing these groups as advocates of strongly conservative values. According to the American Library Association, 92% of the book challenges in 2025 originated from pressure groups, government officials, and decision-makers, with fewer than 3% stemming from individual parents.
This disparity has intensified criticism that right-wing campaigns are narrowing the diversity of reading materials available to students in public schools. PEN America reports that the bans tend to target books related to race, racism, LGBTQ+ issues, people of color, sexuality, and sexual violence, many of which had been selected by educators and librarians for school collections prior to facing challenges. The organization also highlighted how political pressure via legislation, official hearings, and removal demands can transform ideological disputes over individual books into restrictions that impact entire school systems.
Unprecedented Book Removals Spark Free-Expression Concerns
The scope of censorship now extends well beyond isolated local disputes, with the national level of documented removals surpassing individual cases. Since 2021, PEN America has recorded more than 34,000 school book bans, while the American Library Association reported 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, along with 5,668 books banned from libraries and 920 facing access restrictions. Although their methodologies differ, both organizations confirm that censorship is occurring at historically unprecedented levels, with coordinated efforts and government actions playing key roles in many removals.
The presence of Atwood and North in these figures adds a Canadian dimension to the latest data, yet the core conflict remains rooted in U.S. educational politics. Laws supported by Republicans and conservative advocacy networks have shifted decision-making powers away from local educators and librarians, who previously handled such matters. Advocacy groups for free expression argue that these restrictions limit access to literature, especially works discussing identity, race, and sexuality, though supporters contend that age-appropriate screening of materials is necessary. The rising totals reflect how these political conflicts now influence access to thousands of books within U.S. public schools.