Banned In The USA isn’t a classic Springsteen tune, but instead it’s the newly released report from PEN America documenting public school book bans for the full 2023-2024 school year. The report records 10,046 instances of books banned nationwide, a dramatic 200 percent rise over the previous school year. Since 2021, PEN America has counted close to 16,000 instances of book bans in U.S. public schools.
According to Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves, 43% of book ban cases, or 4,295 bans, were books completely prohibited from access – neither pending a review nor available with newly imposed restrictions. Books completely removed from access were 16 percentage points higher this year (43%) compared to prior years (27%).
As has been true since this censorship crisis started in 2021, individuals and groups espousing extreme conservative viewpoints predominantly targeted titles with themes of race, sexuality, and gender identity. The report also found that books are increasingly being censored that depict topics young people confront in the real world, including experiences with substance abuse, suicide, depression and mental health concerns, and sexual violence.
An updated Index of School Book Bans showed 4,231 unique titles were banned during the 2023-2024 school year, impacting 2,662 authors, 195 illustrators, and 31 translators, a total of 2,877 creative individuals. Over the last three years, 6,143 titles and 4,563 creatives have been affected by book bans.
Nineteen Minutes by bestselling author Jodi Picoultwas the most commonly banned book during the last school year. It is among 19 titles banned in 50 or more school districts. The next most frequently banned titles were: Looking for Alaska by John Green; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. And, 74 titles by Stephen King were banned.
Disproportionate to publishing rates, titles about LGBTQ+ people and characters, people and characters of color, and books with sex-related content were overwhelmingly affected. Analyzing book titles banned in two or more districts, or 1,091 unique titles, PEN America found that 57% of these include sex or sex-related topics and content, 44% included characters or people of color, and 39% included LGBTQ+ characters or people.
via pen.org
Travel Between The Pages 
That’s just plain horrifying.
The U.S. is teetering on the edge of the abyss of a Fascist theocracy. But what’s nearly as disturbing is the campaign to ban books by Jewish writers and publishers that was recently launched by so-called Progressives in the name of political purity in support of a fantasy about Islamists.