Book bans for nonfiction books more than doubled in 2024-2025, according to a new report from PEN America, while removals of books about people of color and LGBTQ+ identities also grew. PEN analyzed 3,734 titles that were removed from schools between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. The organization found 6,780 instances of book removals from 23 states. While fiction still dominates book bans, the ratio of fiction to nonfiction changed markedly from the previous year. From 2023–2024, 85 percent of banned books were fiction and 14 percent were nonfiction; last year, the fiction percentage fell to 69 percent […]
