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Dive Brief:

• Less than 3% of book challenges in 2025 came from parents, and a full 92% were initiated by groupsor government officials, according to an analysis of book challenges at public, school and college libraries published Monday by the American Library Association. The remaining 5% came from library users or unknown sources. 
• The percentage of challenges originating with sources other than individual parents jumped from 2024, when it stood at 72%. 
• Some two-thirds of the challenged books, or about 5,668, went on to be banned, and an additional 920 titles were restricted in some way. That's the highest number of titles censored in a single year and highest rate of censorship recorded between 1990 and 2025, according to ALA. 

Dive Insight:

Of the challenged titles, 40% reflected LGBTQIA+ experiences and the experiences of Black and Indigenous people, and people of color, according to the ALA analysis. 

The top-most challenged book was "Sold" by Patricia McCormick, a novel about a Nepali teenager who is sold into India's sex slave trade.

In its report, ALA defined "ban" as the removal of library materials based on objections from a person or group, while a "challenge" is an attempt to have library materials removed or restricted.

The high percentage of challenges from organizations and government officials stands in contrast to what proliferating state curriculum laws have taken aim at: namely, giving parents more discretion to review and successfully challenge the materials their children have access to in school.

“In 2025, book bans were not sparked by concerned parents, and they were not the result of local grassroots efforts,” said Sarah Lamdan, executive director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, in an April 20 statement. “They were part of a well-funded, politically-driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities.”

This veers from the trend in previous years, where pressure groups and government officials accounted for only 12.9% of book challenges, averaging about 46 titles per year, the report said. However, in 2025, those parties challenged 7,884 books and 4,235 unique titles, meaning many titles were targeted mulitple times. 

"This duplication reflects a large-scale, coordinated effort," the ALA said in its report. "Today’s censorship campaigns are not spontaneous expressions of community concern; they are organized initiatives driven by political actors and well-funded book banning movements." 

This effort doesn't come as a surprise, said Jason Griffith, assistant professor of education at Penn State University. 

"The fact that most challenges are coming from pressure groups and government officials helps explain why the pre-censorship movement has so much traction against the many, many people and groups working to preserve and foster students’ right to read," he said. "There’s also an opportunity here." 

If most challenges aren’t coming from individual parents, he said, it could open the door to collaboration among them, students, teachers and librarians to increase access to texts, he said.

A handful of book removal decisions or the laws underpinning them have led to high-profile lawsuits — in some instances joined by large publishers like Penguin Random House — against school districts or state leaders. 

Some have been partially successful in challenging book removals, with others gone on to be appealed. Many are still bouncing between appellate and lower courts.

In one case that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear, public library patrons sued Llano County, Texas,to stop some book removals over racism and transgender issues. The plaintiffs initially won a preliminary injunction from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the appellate court ultimately reversed that injunction and dismissed the free speech claims.  

Had the Supreme Court taken the case, it would have become the first on book bans to be heard by the justices and could have decided their constitutionality.The justices instead left in place a lower court ruling allowing state and local governments to make decisions on book bans.