October 1, 2025
Book bans surge; A Clockwork Orange tops list
6,870 books banned in 2024-25, Florida leads with 2,304
✊Civil Rights📰Media Literacy🎓Education
On Oct. 1, 2025, PEN America published 'The Normalization of Book Banning,' documenting 6,870 instances of books removed from K‑12 school shelves in the 2024–2025 school year.
The dataset covers 3,752 unique titles reported across 23 states and 87 public school districts.
Florida recorded 2,304 removals, Texas 1,781, and Tennessee 1,622. PEN found that many removals were anticipatory, made 'to avoid controversy,' and that censorship pressures concentrated in a few states.
The report lists Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange as the single title removed in the greatest number of districts and names Stephen King as the author whose works were removed most often.
PEN America counted 6,870 instances of books removed from K‑12 school shelves in 2024–2025.
Those removals covered 3,752 unique book titles reported across 23 states and 87 public school districts.
Since 2021 PEN has recorded roughly 22,810 instances across 45 states and 451 public school districts.
Florida recorded 2,304 removals in 2024–2025. Texas recorded 1,781. Tennessee recorded 1,622.
PEN documents that many removals were made preemptively 'to avoid controversy' rather than as direct enforcement of a single, specific statute.
On Jan. 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights announced it had closed 11 complaints related to book removals and that OCR would end the book‑ban coordinator role.
✊Civil Rights📰Media Literacy🎓Education
People, bills, and sources
Kasey Meehan
Director, Freedom to Read, PEN America
Sabrina Baêta
Senior Program Manager, Freedom to Read, PEN America
Ron DeSantis
Governor of Florida
Donald Trump
President of the United States
Moms for Liberty (Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich)
National parental‑rights advocacy group
What You Can Do
1
civic action
Attend school board meetings and register to speak.
Get on your district's meeting agenda one week before the meeting. Public comment influences local retention decisions.
Contact your district clerk
2
understanding
File an open records request for your district's challenged‑books list.
Use your state's public records law to request challenge logs and policy documents. Compare them to NCAC model policies.