Every year when the American Library Association's Banned Books Week rolls around, I see a ton of incredible content about why it's important to read banned books and to support their authors, especially those who are living and working right now. On the flip side, I also see a lot of seemingly well-intentioned but misguided content about how book challenges/bans are good, whether for publicity or sales or "the mission," whatever that means to the person posting.

Last year, I threw together a quick graphic highlighting historically challenged books with fat representation, noting how bans targeting specific identities—as the majority of book bans go after BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors and stories—inherently diminish intersectional representation for multiple groups, especially those with little to no good rep in the first place.

This year, I want to talk about some of the myths about book bans and what you can do as a reader, reviewer, author, and/or publishing professional to combat this dangerous tool of fascism.

What constitutes a "Banned Book"?

Book bans are a form of censorship that primarily impact schools, though in recent years, public libraries have faced increased scrutiny and threats for providing patrons with access to certain material or shelving it in certain sections.

According to PEN America, a school book ban is "any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished."

Book bans have increased year over year, with nearly 12 thousand instances recorded in the 2025-2026 school year, including 7 thousand unique titles. PEN America cites new state censorship laws and AI tools used to remove books en masse to account for the record high, noting that 34 thousand bans have been recorded since the organization started tracking them in 2021.

Following the Sept. 2025 implementation of the sweeping law SB13, which bans "profane" and "indecent" content, Texas surpassed Florida for the most books banned in a single year by nearly 5 thousand. Previously, Florida banned the most books per year for three consecutive years.

It's important to note that there is a difference between a book challenge and a book ban, especially when it comes to documenting numbers. A book challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict access to a title because of its content, while a ban is the actual removal or restriction (either permanently or temporarily while under review). Numbers reported by PEN America only reflect bans, not challenges that are ultimately shot down.

Of interest re: Fat Forward Books, one of the titles banned for the first time during the 2025-2026 academic year is Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World by Kelly Jensen, who's been tirelessly documenting book bans as an editor at Book Riot for years. Her previous book, Body Talk, has also been banned. In September, Jensen launched the limited-run literacy advocacy podcast Liberating Lit.

What are common myths about book bans?

Although Texas far outranked other states by the numbers in the 2025-2026 school year when it comes to book bans, that doesn't mean this kind of censorship only happens there, or that it's limited to so-called red states. Book bans happen across the country and stem from challenges that overwhelmingly hail from a vocal minority of hyper conservative pressure groups. Individual parents rarely challenge books on behalf of their children, and even in small communities, decisions about book bans are frequently made for the advancement of a conservative agenda.

To see how this can happen, I highly recommend watching the 2024 documentary An American Pastoral, which examines how the school board in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania has become so deeply tied to Christian Nationalism that "flipping" its seats has become a gritty battle during every election cycle. Meanwhile, students and educators have lost access to dozens of books based on flat-out lies about their content.

As noted by PEN America in a report published in May, despite many book challenges claiming a title contains "pornography" and thus should be restricted or removed, only 10 percent of banned titles in the 2024-2025 school year actually contained explicit, consensual sexual experiences. Books challenged for "sexually explicit material" include sexual education titles, art history books, stories about domestic abuse and sexual violence, and more, which not only significantly limits access to important educational tools but also restricts readers' ability to understand certain experiences through books, whether fiction or nonfiction.

Because book bans primarily target schools, some consider the word "ban" to be a misnomer. After all, we can still buy those books at our local bookstores or online, right? While that may be true, school libraries make books and other materials available for everyone in their institutions, for free, creating equal access opportunities regardless of financial or social factors that may restrict students and educators in other contexts. Consider, for example, a middle schooler with questions about gender and sexuality who doesn't have a safe adult in their life. Even without checking out a book, spending time in the library could allow that child the chance to read about LGBTQIA+ identities and lives in a safe way, without having to spend money or risk exposure at home.

On the topic of money, book bans do not increase sales. Every time a book makes headlines for being challenged or banned, inevitably, someone posts about how that author will see a huge bump in sales because of it. Authors report that this isn't true. Plus, authors often depend on school visits and festival appearances to connect with readers and sell books, and invites disappear when their titles are restricted or removed from shelves. Bans limit author income. They don't increase it.

What can I do about book bans?

If you're an author reading this post, please join Authors Against Book Bans (AABB)! If you are publishing professional reading this post, please join Publishing Professionals Against Book Bans (PPABB)! These groups work with organizations that support the freedom to read at the local, state, and national levels to speak at conferences and festivals, provide testimonial/opinion at policy meetings, conduct written campaigns to government officials regarding censorial laws, and more. There are state chapters, support groups, and more, all working together to advocate for authors, educators, librarians, students, and parents who are fighting to keep books accessible in schools and libraries.

I also encourage you to check out the Freedom to Read Project, particularly its Turning the Page: An Advocate's Guide to the Freedom to Read, a resource guide compiled by public school parents that contains organizing tips and tools to advocate locally.

If you can afford a copy, grab The ABA Right to Read Handbook from Philomena Polefrone and the American Booksellers Association, or request one from your local library. If you can afford multiple copies, leave them in prominent places like cafes, co-working hubs, gym locker rooms, or your local Little Free Library for others to have.

Perhaps most important,

CALL! YOUR! REPS!

Call and/or write to your elected officials and tell them you oppose the three following federal book ban bills:

• H.R. 7661

  • Would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to prohibit federal funding for any material deemed "sexually oriented." This definition includes any material that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism." Framed as a bill to protect children, H.R. 7661 defines trans existence as "inappropriate" and opens the door to ban books with LGBTQIA+ characters by treating queer and trans identities as being inherently "sexual content."

  • NOTE: s. 4925, a "companion bill" to H.R. 7661, is effectively a senate version of the above that may be lumped in with it.

• H.R. 8705

  • Blocks federal funding for American History and Civics Education from being used to promote so-called "discriminatory equity ideology" or "gender ideology" as defined in the "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling" EO from 2025. This would explicitly target books about racism, civil rights, sexism, and inequality, and significantly limit topics discussed in civics classes.

• H.R. 2616

  • Would withhold ESEA funding from schools that "teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology," per definitions from Executive Order 14168. This bill denies the existence of trans and non-binary people and would not only ban books that talk about them, but would refuse to acknowledge them at all in a public education setting.

If you need phone scripts, click here. These can also be adapted into email templates. To find your current representatives, you can use 5 Calls or ResistBot, and to find who's running in the 2026 midterms and 2027 off-year elections, check out The Ballot Brief. Then, this November (and every election to come), if you're eligible, please vote.

In the meantime, if you don't have one, get a library card!

Read Banned Books

Read banned books all year, every year, not just during Banned Books Week. Advocate for the freedom to read whenever and wherever you can, using whatever means are available to you. If you want to get more involved, look up your local school board meeting dates and times, attend, and speak up during public comment periods. Consider running for your local library board. Host letter-writing or phone parties!

There are so many ways to advocate for everyone's right to books and literacy. If you have a suggestion, please share it in the comments below!

Tagged in this post are the books mentioned above, some of the fat-forward titles I recommended last year, and some of the most banned books of the last several years according to data from the ALA.