Books with LGBTQIA+ and/or BIPOC representation were again among those most targeted for censorship last year, as book challenges stay near record levels, according to the American Library Association’s latest data. And 92% of all titles challenged were targeted by pressure groups and government officials rather than individuals.
The Top Most Challenged Books
The Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2025 list was released today, Right to Read Day, as part of the American Library Association’s annual “State of America’s Libraries Report” (PDF). “Challenges” are documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries, calculated from censorship reports submitted through the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom as well as from media mentions. Such challenges may result in the book being restricted, withdrawn, or retained. I’ll add that even when a book is retained, it is often unavailable for a period of time while the challenge is evaluated.
The ALA’s Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2025 were:
1. Sold, by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky*
3. Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe*
4. Empire of Storms, by Sarah J. Maas*
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo*
5. (tie)Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins*
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J. Maas*
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical, by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska, by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury, by Jennifer L. Armentrout*
Books with asterisks include LGBTQ representation, though not always the protagonist(s).
Censorship Numbers
These books are, of course, only the tip of a much larger iceberg.
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom recorded challenges to 4,235 unique titles in 2025, nearly 2,000 more than 2024 and only five fewer than 2023’s record. That’s more than 15 times the annual average of 273 between 2001 and 2020. The most common reasons for censoring books were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors, LGBTQIA+ characters, discussions of race, racism, social justice, and diversity, and political or religious views with which the book challenger disagreed. Of the 4,235 titles targeted in 2025, 1,671, or nearly 40%, represent the lived experience of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC people.
More striking than the raw numbers, however, is the fact that “Approximately 91.7% of titles challenged in 2025 were targeted by pressure groups (20.8%) and government decision makers (70.9%). By comparison, only 2.7% of challenges came from parents, and 1.4% came from individual library users,” per Sarah Lamdan, executive director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, who said in the report that this is a “a dramatic shift from previous years.”
Lamdan explained that “In the past, pressure groups and government officials accounted for roughly 12.9% of book challenges, averaging about 46 titles per year. In 2025 alone, those same actors targeted 7,884 books. That number includes 4,235 unique titles, which means that many titles were targeted multiple times. This duplication reflects a large-scale, coordinated effort.”
As I’ve often said myself, Lamdan noted that these efforts “weren’t about protecting children—they were about erasing realities.” She asserted:
A tiny cohort of people are trying to remove people’s lived experiences from library shelves. In 2025, these people used terms like “harmful” and “inappropriate” to describe stories reflecting LGBTQIA+ identities or themes related to equity and inclusion. Having families that look different than theirs is not obscene, regardless of their well-funded efforts to convince us otherwise.
Libraries encountered court and legislative losses, too, including state laws “allowing, or even requiring, the removal of certain viewpoints from library collections,” Lamdan said. This has led to the removal of large numbers of books that “include classic literature and scientific texts about psychology and physiology,” and is the reason that even “long-established works—such as Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange” are now on the Top Ten list.
Additionally, censorship is moving “beyond school and public libraries and into academic libraries” as “Academic and intellectual freedom are both under attack from government operatives hoping to wipe out certain schools of thought from colleges and universities.”
On the positive side, Lamdan said, “The small-but-coordinated push for censorship was met with widespread and passionate opposition” from library workers and freedom-to-read advocates, and from coalitions among “grassroots activists, advocacy organizations, writers, authors, publishers, teachers, parents, and library workers.” Additionally, “Legal victories and new state-level protections emerged in several regions,” including Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island; courts held that censorship legislation in Florida and Iowa was unconstitutional, and voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and elsewhere “rejected censorship-focused school and library board candidates.”
Still, the threats are real and active.
Take Action
Sam Helmick, 2025-2026 ALA president, said in the report that Americans must now ask themselves: “Are libraries merely a civic ‘nicety?’ Are they a pleasant, nostalgic amenity to be maintained only when budgets are flush and times are quiet? Or are libraries a true American value, essential to the health and survival of our republic?”
The latter is clearly Helmick’s position. They say that valuing libraries will require three things: championing their use; securing resourcing; and establishing supportive policies, i.e., “legislative frameworks that protect the freedom to read and the professional autonomy of library workers.”
I couldn’t agree more. Here are some ways you can be part of that effort.
- Contact your elected officials today and tell them to vote against H.R.7661, a federal bill to censor ban public schools from having books that depict “gender dysphoria or transgenderism,” which would likely lead to widespread censorship of books with any kind of LGBTQ representation, as I’ve explained.
- Confidentially report censorship attempts to the ALA and/or to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).
- Visit Unite Against Book Bans, an ALA-led coalition that includes LGBTQ organizations, publishers, and others, for talking points, suggested actions, and more resources.
- Participate in town, school board, and library meetings. The ALA and PFLAG have created some helpful tips for testifying at such meetings.
- Vote even in purely local elections.
- Consider running for school and library boards yourself.
- Donate to organizations fighting book bans, if your means allow.
- Recommend books about LGBTQ and other marginalized people to your local libraries to show there is community support and need for them. Also recommend them to the young people you know so that they check them out.
- Leave online reviews for LGBTQ- and BIPOC-inclusive children’s and young adult books to counter reviews that claim such titles are inappropriate.
- Keep up with all that’s happening related to book censorship. I recommend Book Riot’s “Literary Activism” newsletter (though I’ll keep reporting on highlights, particularly LGBTQ-related ones, here at Mombian, too).