Banned Books Update: New Year, More Censorship

Since 2021 and as of today, Feb. 3, 2025, six of my seven novels and two anthologies including my work have been censored in 96 cases across 20 states. By censored I mean a book has been formally challenged, banned, or restricted in a school or public library. When a book is restricted, that generally means that minors (including teens up to age 17) are prevented from checking them out without parental permission, or they are denied the option to check them out entirely.

The Background

A right-wing movement to censor books about LGBTQ+ people, people of color, accurate representations of American history and science, and racism — in other words, books about the real state of the world — has been underway since 2021. I've been tracking the way my books have been affected since 2022. In 2023 I started counting the number of censorship attempts against my books; that includes cases in which they are challenged, banned, or restricted.

Organizations such as PEN America, Every Library, and the American Library Association have been tracking censorship cases for all books, but because thousands of books are being censored, it's near impossible for these organizations to drill down on individual titles. Usually, news reports about book banning focus on the books that are "most banned." For example, the ALA's Top 10 Most Challenged Books list includes titles such as Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson that are often cited in news reports. That means thousands of other titles are rarely mentioned in the media about book banning.

My books are all about queer teen girls; several of them are about Asian Americans. The books include queer relationships and sexuality. They have been banned a lot, but not enough to land on these lists of the top banned books in America. I don't particularly want my books to be on those lists, but I want to know how many times my books are being censored, and where the censorship is happening. In order to learn that, I've been tracking the censorship attempts on my own.

To do that, I've been following the book banning news, largely through reading Kelly Jensen's Literary Activism newsletter, which includes news reports of book banning cases every week. I read the articles to see if they mention my books. I search for news reports using my own book titles. I go to the websites of school or public libraries mentioned in news reports and search for book banning documents or search their catalogs for my books. I also reference Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson's Book Censorship Database. I can't do this every week, but every few months I enter this data into a spreadsheet to track my own book bans.

This update includes the most recent data I have about my own book bans; news on the Iowa lawsuit in which I am a co-plaintiff; and a heads-up about a new trend in book censorship. My previous book banning updates are here:

The Data

As of Feb. 3, 2025:

  • Six of my seven novels and two anthologies including my work have been censored in 96 cases across 20 states. The titles that have been censored are:

    • A Line in the Dark (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2017)

    • A Scatter of Light (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2022)

    • Adaptation (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012)

    • All Out:The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell, including my short story "New Year" (Harlequin Teen, 2018)

    • Ash (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009)

    • Huntress (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011)

    • Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2021)

    • The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves edited by Sarah Moon, including my essay "Dear Malinda, Age 16" (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012)

  • My most-censored book is Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which has been censored in 78 cases across 18 states.

Because local news coverage has become extremely fragmented and a lot of it is behind paywalls, it's hard to confirm that a specific book has been censored. Often, news reports don't list the titles being censored. It's even harder to determine what happens once that book is censored. Was it taken off shelves and discarded? Was it put in a restricted room? Was the book challenge reversed and the book returned to the shelf? It's hard to know.

My statistics about my own books are as accurate as I can make them, but they likely do not include all censorship attempts. They also likely include some cases in which my books have been returned to shelves, although that doesn't negate the fact that they were previously censored.

The full spreadsheet, including citations, is available to view here:

Update on the Iowa Lawsuit

You may recall that I'm a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit against the state of Iowa's book banning law. To recap: In November 2023, we (that means my publisher, Penguin Random House; Iowa teachers and students; and me and three other authors) filed for an injunction to block this overbroad law which has since led to banning thousands of titles in Iowa. In December 2023, the law was blocked in Iowa district court. In early 2024, the state of Iowa appealed this decision. This past June, the case was argued in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In August, the appeals court ruled that the state of Iowa's argument that libraries constitute government speech was invalid, but also overturned the initial injunction on a technicality that allowed us to go back to start and do this again.

Last September, we took the case back to district court in Iowa to refile for another injunction. This time, we were joined by the other major publishers (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks) and the Authors Guild. Also, this time the lawsuit will "focus exclusively on the prohibition against any books containing sexual content."

Last November, the Iowa State Board of Education began to finalize rules on how the book banning law will be implemented, among them requiring school districts to "enact physical and technological controls to make sure students only have access to age-appropriate materials." It's not clear to me if the rules have been finalized or not, but regardless, we are going back to court this week, Feb. 6, 2025, to try to block this law again. The same judge, Stephen H. Locher, who blocked the law a year ago, will hear our case again. Stay tuned.

Moving YA to Adult Sections

As the movement to censor books continues, tactics have evolved. Many right-wing activists have started to push public libraries to move YA and children's books that include LGBTQ characters into the libraries' adult sections. For example, see this news story titled "North Shelby Library to segregate LGBTQ children’s books" from the Alabama Political Reporter.

Some public libraries are requiring parental permission for minors (including older teens) to even enter the adult section. That means these books, which are intended for teens, are being banned from their intended audience.

This has happened at the Eagle Public Library in Idaho, where one person (whose identity remains unknown) challenged 23 books, including Last Night at the Telegraph Club. This person's requests led to all of these books being moved to the adult section, and three are being held behind the circulation desk so patrons have to request them from library staff. During the closed-door deliberations that led to this decision, the library board also decided to allow parents to prevent their children or teens from checking out adult materials.

In the Community Library Network of Kootenai County, Idaho, 140 books, primarily YA titles, were recently removed from the library "for review" while the library considers whether they should be relocated to the adult section. Just this week, The Spokesman-Review based in Spokane, WA, acquired the list of 140 titles through a public records request, and the list includes Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

The question is: Where are these 140 books while they're being "reviewed"? How long will they be under "review"? While the books are absent and unavailable, they are essentially banned.

One complicating factor in this new censorship tactic is that public library systems often have multiple branches or locations. When I've searched for my books in these public library catalogs online, sometimes they're categorized as "adult" in one branch but as "YA" in other branches. I suspect this simply means the book banners haven't managed to relocate them in all branches — yet.

Another problem with censorship-by-relocation is that sometimes so many books are rounded up that it's difficult to figure out what is actually happening. This is censorship by overloading the system.

For example, the Livingston Parish Library in Louisiana has decided to move all YA books into the adult section while they review their entire 30,000-copy collection. This library already requires parental permission for minors, including older teens, to access the adult collection. When I searched the library's catalog system on Feb. 3, 2025, it showed that the library has two copies of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, both of them checked out. One is now overdue, and the other copy is not due until May 12, 2025. That is clearly an unusual due date — books are typically not checked out of public libraries for such a long time.

Screencaps from the Livingston Parish Library online catalog showing my novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, with both copies checked out with unusual due dates.


What's happening here? Has the book been relocated or simply banned? It's not clear — and that is often the case with large censorship cases.

Conclusion

Book bans and censorship are only one prong of a multi-pronged attack on the First Amendment occurring right now in the U.S. These right-wing activists are also trying to defund libraries; they're getting hard-working teachers and librarians fired from their jobs; they're trying to restrict the teaching of real history; they're trying to erase the representation of queer folks; they're particularly attacking transgender people's rights by attempting to deny their actual existence. These efforts collectively work to destroy the foundations of a democratic society. That destruction may be directed by a national right-wing agenda, but it happens one local school board at a time. This is why book bans have continued to increase, and this is why I am continuing to track my own book bans and to speak out about book bans in general.

If you're new to this fight, I encourage you to get involved and get informed. Subscribe to the Literary Activism newsletter and tune in to your local community. Find out what's happening in your school board and if censorship is in the water, speak up if you can. If your community is not dealing with censorship attacks, donate to organizations that are fighting it, such as EveryLibrary, Texas Freedom to Read, and Florida Freedom to Read.

And please, stop telling writers that "It's a badge of honor to get your book banned!" Or "Book bans make people buy your books!" I can assure you: It's not a badge of honor to have your work disparaged as "obscene" when it clearly is not. Also, book bans do not lead to book sales.

Book bans are a direct attack on writers' First Amendment rights. Censorship is also an attack on Americans' First Amendment right to read whatever we want. The good news is, there are still plenty of things you can do to fight back.

Features, NewsMalinda Lobanned books