Booksology 8. (Tie) “A Clockwork Orange” Anthony Burgess
8. (Tie) Same by Ellen Hopkins
8. (Tie) Looking for Alaska John Green
8. (tie) “Storm and Fury” by Jennifer L. Armentrout
ALA publishes more than just a list of the most difficult books each year. Their new report highlights several other key elements of this moment in censorship. among them:
- Track OIF of ALA 4,235 unique titles I was trying last year. This is the second highest number ever recorded by ALA. The year with the highest number was 2023.
- tracked by OIF 5,668 books banned from librariesThis represents 66% of the total number of documented issues. This is the highest number of banned books in a year ever recorded by ALA.
- 920 Titles obtained from all those challenges was restricted;These have been moved to the library or require parental permission to access.
- 40% Of the title challenges LGBTQ+ people or people of color featured.
- 92% Of all the challenges, Brought in by pressure groups and government officialswhich is up from 72% just a year ago. Less than 3% of the challenges arose from individual parents.
“In 2025, the book ban was not caused by concerned parents or the result of local grassroots efforts,” said Sarah Ramdan, ALA’s director of intellectual freedom. “They were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities.”
These numbers differ from those recorded by PEN America each fall. Reasons for this include ALA’s small staff size (OIF has three staff members), the definition of what it tracks (for example, PEN has a broader definition of “prohibited”), and the breadth of information passed through each organization (ALA tracks all types of libraries, not just school libraries). The differences in data are not as meaningful as the fact that, taken together, the American Library Association and PEN America provide solid insight into the methods and practices of book censorship at this time. Neither can accurately capture the full extent of undocumented book censorship, nor can they account for the silent/soft censorship that is thought to constitute the most significant number of book bans.
One thing people who pay attention to these Most Forbidden/Challenge lists will notice when comparing ALA’s compilations to PEN’s titles is that because ALA tracks all kinds of libraries, it becomes more obvious that titles on PEN’s lists change more frequently. It’s gone. The title has been removed and rarely appears again each year, with other schools quietly taking over the title. When ALA examines data involving public libraries, titles appear more frequently over several years due to the larger scope of observations. We know that what starts in school doesn’t end there, and the data reflects that.
“Libraries exist to create space for all stories and all lived experiences,” said ALA President Sam Helmick. “As we celebrate National Library Week, we reaffirm that libraries are places for knowledge, access, and for everyone.”
More information about the American Library Association’s 2025 Top 10 Most Challenging Books can be found on the association’s website. ALA has also updated some of its resources to protect the right to read. These include the Censorship Search Portal, which lets you search OIF’s vast database to learn about efforts to ban books, and Bluesky’s Censorship Incident Bot, which partners with the Free Law Project to provide real-time updates on the latest book censorship cases.
