Challenges have surged to record highs over the past few years, and the 2024 totals so far still exceed the ALA’s numbers before 2020.

That’s especially true during Banned Books Week, which kicks off on Sept. 22. The yearly event not only celebrates the free access of ideas, but it also highlights the increasing efforts to ban books – especially targeting titles featuring characters or written by authors who are LGBTQ+ and BIPOC.

Banned Books Week kicked off Sunday across the nation, uniting authors, readers, librarians and more in the effort to combat what some data shows as a rise in censorship.

Two new reports provide a mixed but compelling outlook on the wave of book removals and challenges as the annual Banned Books Week begins for schools, stores and libraries nationwide.

While the list of banned books in schools across the country is growing, The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County has a display featuring many forbidden titles as part of Banned Books Week.

In the 2023-2024 school year, state legislation was “particularly critical in accelerating book bans,” the report states, “making it easier to remove books from schools without due process, or in some cases,