book ban

Every year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracks and records the most banned and challenged books in the U.S. Here’s the top 10 most banned books for 2021.

Book banning is far from a new phenomenon, but incidents have been on the rise across the country the past two years. As Nora Pelizzari of the National Coalition Against Censorship points out, “Everybody is guilty at some point of trying to control the information that other people have access to.”

“It’s frustrating because a lot of the adults are saying, ‘Well, you can’t read this,’ but yet they’ve never asked any teenagers how we feel about these topics,” one Pennsylvania teen said.

In a 4-3 vote, the Wentzville School board voted to pull Toni Morrison’s first book, “The Bluest Eye” from every district school’s library.

The McMinn County School Board voted to ban Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel, “Maus” by Art Spiegelman from eighth grade language arts curriculum.

Grassroots organizations across the country battle prison restrictions and pandemic struggles to send books to incarcerated people.