School Libraries

Librarians, individuals, and grassroots organizations are on the offensive against censorship attempts.

The director of the Florida Freedom to Read Project discusses expectations for 2024, plus a look at new book-related laws for 2024, a Massachusetts police chief apologizes for an officer searching for a book at middle school, and the story of a Russian librarian who called out the fascism of removing LGBTQIA+ books.

From censorship and AI to book fairs and the state of middle grade publishing, it's been an eventful year. Among those driving SLJ's most viewed posts of 2023: Jeff Kinney, Moms for Liberty, and stellar librarians. Ah, and those Best Books.

A complaint to the police sent a plainclothes officer to the school in Great Barrington, MA, but Gender Queer was not there; hundreds of books get removed in a Florida district; and Books Save Lives Act was introduced in Congress.

Fiction and nonfiction about candy and the history of chocolate complement the film with Timothée Chalamet as the young Willy Wonka. 

PEN America's report, Spineless Shelves: Two Years of Book Banning, shows the spread of copycat book bans, as well as how several titles from an author were targeted after one of their works was banned.

Review committees decided to keep challenged books on the shelves in districts in Maryland, Tennessee, and North Dakota; two new grassroots organizations to fight book banning were started by Texas parents and grandparents across the country, respectively.