Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes was the most banned book in U.S. schools during the 2023-2024 school year, according to a new report by the literary nonprofit PEN America.
Picoult’s 2007 novel, about a school shooting, has been banned in more than 50 school districts across the country. The next most frequently banned books were John Green’s Looking for Alaska, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Patricia McCormick’s Sold, and Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why.
“Having the most banned book in the country is not a badge of honor—it’s a call for alarm,” Picoult said in a statement. “My book, and the ten thousand others that have been pulled off school library shelves this year, give kids a tool to deal with an increasingly divided and difficult world. These book banners aren’t helping children. They are harming them.”
PEN America said it recorded 10,046 book bans in public schools over the 2023-2024 school year, a 200% rise over the previous one. The number of unique titles banned in schools was 4,231. The bans, it said, were the result of “individuals and groups espousing extreme conservative viewpoints” targeting “titles with themes of race, sexuality, and gender identity.”
The states with the most book bans were Florida and Iowa, which, together, were responsible for 8,232 bans. Authors with multiple titles banned in U.S. schools include Ellen Hopkins, Sarah J. Maas, and Stephen King.
Kasey Meehan, the director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said, “This crisis is tragic for young people hungry to understand the world they live in and see their identities and experiences reflected in books.…The defense of the core principles of public education and the freedom to read, learn, and think is as necessary now as ever.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
