10 ms·

The most banned books in U.S. schools

89 points by FigurativeVoid 10mo ago

orthecreedence 10mo ago
But, gee willickers, where is Mein Kampf on the list?
- NickC25 10mo ago
  Or Space Relations, a book by the father of the president's former lawyer and attorney general (who himself was a huge player in Epstein circles), which was about a society of "elites" who engage in sex trafficking of minors. That's not banned...I wonder why?
- yettel 10mo ago
  [flagged]
- m00x 10mo ago
  Because they define a ban as books that were previously available but aren't, not books who were never available. You also won't see The Passing of the Great Race in the list.
- bjourne 10mo ago
  It's not there because it is readily available in many US public and college libraries. If it isn't in your institution's collection your librarian will happily help you order it from from a nearby one.
  - Amezarak 10mo ago
    Librarians around the US have been doing mass purges of older books, especially politically sensitive older books and often for political reasons. There’s lots of news on this, if you’re interested. The problem also exists in Canada. I just checked my local library SYSTEM- consisting of about a dozen libraries - and it is in fact nowhere in there. It’s possible that, were my ILL privileges not restricted for “excessive use” (I don’t read new books, so nearly all my checkouts were ILl), that they would condescend to get it to me that way. Of course, they might not. And ILL has tighter restrictions and is more inconvenient. The primary mission of libraries today is not education, preservation of knowledge, or even literacy. The old mission statements are all dead. It’s entertainment and community support. Either way, this is a silly argument. All these “banned” books are also readily available in your public library - they’re pop lit, your local library likely has more copies of Maas than all the Greek writers of antiquity combined. Edit: on page 2 of 11, I have already counted 62 copies of Sarah J Maas book. As an institution for serving the public entertainment, my library system is doing great.
    - bjourne 10mo ago
      Considering your hallucinations about "mass purges of older books" I would consider your claim about Mein Kampf not being found in your "local library SYSTEM" as bs. You haven't checked, don't know how to check, or don't know what a "local library SYSTEM" is. It is unfortunate that utter falsehoods about how public libraries work are used to justify or somehow "balance" banning books about adolescence.
      - Amezarak 10mo ago
        It’s unfortunate that people believe modern libraries are the educational and literary sanctums envisioned by their founders rather than modern entertainment and community centers. Search for “deaccessioning” and “equity based weeding” and you will find all the information you could wish for. The classics are being thrown into dumpsters or pulped to make room for more computers and Sarah J Maas. In one particularly egregious Canadian case, all books published before 2008 were destroyed. In many cases this is politically driven. Perhaps you know how the use to work, but not how they do now. It’s very grim. Many invaluable niche works, particularly of local history but also of technical subjects, have now been destroyed forever by librarians. The assumption too is that everything is probably digitized somewhere so it doesn’t even matter. Cultural and political and funding concerns as actual literacy has declined have completely subsumed that original purpose of libraries. > You haven't checked, don't know how to check, or don't know what a "local library SYSTEM" is. There’s no need to call me a liar. I read quite a lot and end up buying nearly all my books nowadays because the library system rarely had even very notable older books, but I still check. It takes about 30 seconds to type into the collection search bar. I did, in fact, look before I wrote that comment. Perhaps you should have not been so sure when you wrote your original comment that it was definitely there. Meanwhile, Maas has at least several dozen and I would suppose a few hundred copies of her books in the system. So, according to you it’s no big deal if the book is in the public library - well I can assure you Maas is several times more likely to be in any local public library than Hitler, so it sounds like there’s nothing to be concerned about. Your comment is entirely applicable to these Maas books: “ its not there because it is readily available in many US public and college libraries. If it isn't in your institution's collection your librarian will happily help you order it from from a nearby one.”
Animats 10mo ago
Maas' Throne of Glass series? Why?
- cogman10 10mo ago
  Being unfamiliar with the series, a short google makes me believe it's because some (a lot?) of the characters are bisexual.
  - vablings 10mo ago
    That seems insane to me. There are plenty of bisexual individuals that children will encounter in the real-world no. I could sympathize with banning of books that are of a certain obscenity but if purely because they are bisexual that sounds unhinged
    - cogman10 10mo ago
      That was the underlying motivation of a lot of these book bans and why they were so open ended. The idaho law explicitly calls out "homosexuality" as a reason for removing a book.
    - orthecreedence 10mo ago
      [flagged]
    - UncleMeat 10mo ago
      It is not insane. Bigots want there to be no visible LGBT people in society. "Your child will encounter a gay person someday" is not an argument they care about because they would also like to ensure that gay people cannot be visible in other parts of society.
    - vkou 10mo ago
      > That seems insane to me. That's because it is, and the people pushing for this are.
    - IAmBroom 10mo ago
mjfl 10mo ago
[dead]
nerdjon 10mo ago
There is a part of me seriously considering making a bookshelf dedicated to all of these banned books. I don't understand the logic of banning these books, do they act like the internet doesn't exist? Kids will find this information, I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school. Then again being short sited is one of their strong suits. (Not downplaying banned books, I just can't understand thinking it is a good idea)
- jfindper 10mo ago
  >There is a part of me seriously considering making a bookshelf dedicated to all of these banned books. My local bookstore proudly features a table of "banned books" right at the entrance. It's a pretty good advertisement!
- seg_lol 10mo ago
  The reason to ban books is so that people that wouldn't normally cross paths with that book will never be affected by it. Book bans are not designed to stop people that know about these books and the ideas they contain. They know that those people will still find them and read them. > I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school. Lots of kids didn't and they don't know they didn't and that is the point.
  - nerdjon 10mo ago
    I mean I get that point and I get what they think they are doing. But (well until the last couple of years) you would have still seen "different" people on tv and in movies. And I get that the point is to make it so the kids are not being exposed to different ideas and beliefs. I am just struggling to understand how that is actually a realistic idea in todays world.
    - UncleMeat 10mo ago
      Because they aren't stopping here. Project 2025's discussion of age restriction for pornographic websites spends all of its time talking about websites with LGBT content, not actual porn. This is a movement to hide all queerness from young people. School libraries are just a foothold.
riazrizvi 10mo ago
I hate the current trend in histrionic social media. A ‘banned book’ is one that you are not allowed to own by the State. You face fines, detention, interrogation, prison, torture, execution. Examples are 1984, The Satanic Verses. Countries that maintain book bans are Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan. Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds. It cannot avoid taking on some angle, since any incomplete collection is an editorial choice.
- jfindper 10mo ago
  >A ‘banned book’ is one that you are not allowed to own by the State. >Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds. At least some of these books are banned from schools by state-level law, not because the school district chose to not stock it.
  - m00x 10mo ago
    Which books and which law? Aren't there other books that are banned for legitimate reasons like hate speech and racial hate that aren't included here?
    - macintux 10mo ago
      Florida bill 1069 allows parents to challenge the inclusion of books in the library, but only explicitly identifies books related to sexual preferences/conduct/etc. https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/... The bill is all about pronouns, heterosexuality, abstinence, and getting books out of libraries on those grounds.
      - m00x 10mo ago
        Inclusion != ban. A ban would be you'd get in trouble for having the book in your possession, which isn't the case here.
renewiltord 10mo ago
How does a “book ban” in a school work? The school is presumably only going to have a limited set of books. If I wanted to ban a book I’d just make it seem like a resource reorganization. “Oh we’re just focusing more on educational content around mathematics. These trans books will come around in a later reorg” and so on. Is it like if you bring the book to school you’ll be sent home or something?
- cogman10 10mo ago
  Here's how it works in idaho [1] Most schools (at least in Idaho) have libraries attached to the school. [1] https://www.acluidaho.org/app/uploads/2024/05/final_2024_05_hb_710_onepage.pdf https://www.acluidaho.org/app/uploads/2024/05/final_2024_05_...
  - renewiltord 10mo ago
    Thank you. That's actually quite helpful. So it affects book selection at the library but actual ownership and bringing the book to school are unaffected. I understand why the opponents of these 'bans' call them that, but it's funny that the proponents do as well. One would imagine their goals better served through deception.
- Mountain_Skies 10mo ago
  My high school would pull the book from the shelf but make it still available by request. Before the start of the next school year, it would be placed back on the shelf. Typically, whoever complained the previous year would have moved on to other things by then.
slg 10mo ago
I wonder how the proponents of banning books like this don't have an "Are we the baddies?" moment. What precedent is there for history to look kindly on this type of behavior? Is there a single fiction book that you can point to that was banned in that past that let's say 60% of people today would agree was necessary (i.e. it would be in schools if there wasn't a ban) and appropriate to ban? It always seems like within a generation or two, most people agree the prior efforts to ban books were wrong, then a little time elapses, and we start banning new books again.
- School-Cotton 10mo ago
  There are no "banned books" in the US. Using that term is inaccurate, and IMO a bit of an insult to people living in countries that actually do ban books. What there actually are, are books that schools refuse to carry in their libraries because they don't think the content is appropriate for children. I would assume this happens in every country.
  - slg 10mo ago
    >books that schools refuse to carry in their libraries You are just fundamentally wrong on the facts here. This list is specifically books that were removed from libraries due to outside forces. I'm not worried about school librarians deciding that a book's content makes it unsuitable for their students. These are situations in which parents or government officials are telling the school to remove a book already present. https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
- nickff 10mo ago
  I am not a proponent of any of these bans, but it seems like someone needs to decide which books are featured at schools, and these 'bans' are just vetoes of certain books enacted by parents or school boards. I am not sure why a librarian or some school administrator should have complete authority to select any books they may prefer. This seems similar to a curriculum, in that the citizens and/or school board direct the educators what they should be (and should not be) teaching.
chaseadam17 10mo ago
Seems like most of the books deal with complex real-world issues like sexual identity, racism, school shootings, etc. and are banned due to "sexual" or "violent" content. My guess is these criteria can be selectively interpreted to target books that go against political or cultural beliefs but there is obviously some merit to wanting to protect young kids from certain topics. I wish the article mentioned what ages the books are banned for because that seems like an important piece of data. I'm assuming it includes all K-12 public schools?
- cogman10 10mo ago
  That's part of the issue. With Idaho it's black and white. Under 18, these books are banned. I'd agree with limiting access based on age, but a lot of these laws have a binary if not outright ban on library access. What's appropriate to a 10, 12, 14, and 16 year old is pretty broad as these kids mature fast in a few short years. I see no reason why any 16 year old should be restricted from any book.
  - chaseadam17 10mo ago
    Agree it shouldn't be so binary. Only thing I'd add is that I believe it makes sense for schools to err towards restricting books until the upper age limit of "appropriate" because parents who choose to expose their kids to those topics earlier can still do so (e.g. by borrowing the book from the public library or giving their kid more permissive internet access) without having tax dollars used to undermine the values of those who don't. It's not an easy issue but for better or worse, I'd bet what books schools "ban" actually has fairly little impact on what kids are exposed to, so this might all be increasingly a mute point.
  - mapontosevenths 10mo ago
    I was.. precocious as a youngster and read books that were far above my grade level and what most adults would consider to be "safe" for children. The first time I tried to check out one of those very adult books the librarian called my parents and asked if it was OK. My parents said "Yes. Let him have whatever he wants." They made a note in my account and the next day they let me have have whatever I wanted. If that hadn't happened I would be a very different, and much dumber, person now. I don't understand what the issue is with just asking the parents? I suspect that most of the people responsible for these "bans" don't want that to happen because some parents will approve of things they don't. Most of this really IS an attempted ban rather than just "appropriate age related content" issue. They don't want to control what THEIR kids can see. They want to control what YOUR kids can see.
Levitz 10mo ago
I find the dishonesty really off-putting. None of these books are "banned". School libraries don't stock them, they might be removed from curricula, but they are not "banned". It's just so bizarre to make an argument (A very valid one!) about freedom of information by openly lying to the public.
- jfindper 10mo ago
  >I find the dishonesty really off-putting. None of these books are "banned". School libraries don't stock them, they might be removed from curricula, but they are not "banned" You can look into it, if you're curious! Some of these books are indeed banned from schools (even if they want to stock it!), by state-level law no less! It's not a curation choice.
  - bigstrat2003 10mo ago
    In that case it would be better to say "banned from school libraries", because they are not banned in general.
    - jfindper 10mo ago
      We're talking about an article titled "The Most Banned Books _in U.S. Schools_", I thought the "in U.S. schools" part provided the context, but I suppose not.
    - orthecreedence 10mo ago
      > banned from school libraries So, banned then?
    - IAmBroom 10mo ago
      Forget DNRTFA; you did not even read the entire seven-word title.
  - threemux 10mo ago
    There's state-level law saying it's illegal to own or read some books on this list? Or just that it's illegal for school libraries to stock it and/or include it in curricula?
colechristensen 10mo ago
The number 1 banned book in this list has 147 bans... there are something like 15,000 school districts in the US. This doesn't seem to be a particularly large problem.
- BryantD 10mo ago
  Depends on how big the chilling effect is, no? For example, if a school librarian notices that a colleague in another district loses their job or worse, gets personal threats because of a specific book, they might well remove a book from shelves before it's challenged. That is not a rebuttal to your point -- I don't have a guess on whether or not the chilling effect is significant. I'm just noting there are follow-on effects to be considered.
  - colechristensen 10mo ago
    My point is we all need to moderate our reactions to things based on actual scale, across the political spectrum rare events are being amplified to make people think they're prevalent disasters and it distorts too many peoples' reality. There are much worse, much bigger problems and we need to constantly be reminding people of how big issues actually are. Book bannings are concerning but what is the size of the actual impact? I see this issue more of as an embarrassment for a handful of schools and boards who are bowing to moralizing fools, people are acting like they're afraid of an escalation to Fahrenheit 451 when we really should be mocking the book banners for their foolishness instead of being afraid of them. This is far from the only issue suffering from a lack of sense of scale.
    - marpstar 10mo ago
      It goes far beyond that. The Iowa legislature has already moved to make changes to how libraries work in Iowa as a result of all of the attention these issues are getting here. They're essentially trying to condense the power to the state level instead of at the municipal level, where it belongs. It's a power grab that'll have repercussions that may very well cause the smallest of libraries here to cease existing. And it all started with people complaining about books in the library.
EcommerceFlow 10mo ago
Filtering content for children is not 'banning books'. By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country, even though it's probably the most consequential piece of literature ever written. This continuous doublespeak is even more humorous considering the site has actual shopping links to every 'banned book'.
- m00x 10mo ago
  Agreed, this is very politically charged. The method for qualifying a "banned book" is not described in detail and seems to only include those with a political lean, when there are obviously other books that aren't shown to kids that didn't make the list.
  - giraffe_lady 10mo ago
    The system they're using is in their faq, in detail. Basically it is books that were previously available but have been removed due to external pressure.
    - m00x 10mo ago
      So it's not really fair to say it's a ban. You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. Would you agree for the school to have the book "The Passing of the Great Race", a famously racist and white supremacist book in your school library?
      - macintux 10mo ago
        For high school students, sure. I'd be very uncomfortable, but know thy enemy.
        antonymoose 10mo ago
        In my state (South Carolina) this is exactly how they handled it. If a parent or activist wishes see a book banned it goes through reviewed based on school-level appropriateness. A book like The Kite Runner with its deprecations of Bacha Bazi are a bit rough for a 5th grader but considered acceptable for a High Schooler given the cultural significance of the work.
bell-cot 10mo ago
I'd bet 90-ish percent of these banned books could be made available to 90% or so of U.S. schoolchildren within a month-ish - if a bunch of anti-book-banning idealists cared to chip in donations to buy up publication rights, then publish the books on a simple readbannedbooks.org web site.
- Amezarak 10mo ago
  They already are. They’re all mass pop lit on this list and the number of removals is very tiny.
everdrive 10mo ago
Banning books in a school is much more performative these days than in times past. Kids these days can pirate the books, find them at a store, order them from Amazon, etc. In the old days the concern might have been that kids would get access to the wrong ideas -- and crucially, you might actually be able to prevent that sort of access. Now, it seems to be be more about representation: "Do we want to say our school supports the ideas in this book?" I'm not defending book banning, but people seem to treat book banning as if it's still the 1950s, and schools are really censoring information in any sort of meanginful way. Instead, all the schools are doing is taking a stand and saying "this book does not represent us." Mind you, I still think this is bad, but I'm a bit baffled why people treat this topic the way they do.
- vablings 10mo ago
  Once again feels like terrible overreach of the so-called nanny state under the guise of "think of the children!". Parents should be the ultimate authority on what kind of media their child consumes, and they should be responsible. Afterall legally children are basically an extension of the adult who is responsible for them
m00x 10mo ago
It doesn't seem like it's directly book ban, and more of a selection of books that are deemed inappropriate for kids according to the school which Pen disagrees with. Popular banned books like Lolita, mein kampf are not here, but they are also not in U.S. schools. There are also no books listed here that schools definitely (for good reason) do not have, like COVID denialism, cult books, etc. I'm happy to be proven wrong in the comments though, this is just from my cursory look at how they define it.
- worik 10mo ago
  > Popular banned books like Lolita, mein kampf are not here, but they are also not in U.S. school Honest question: Are those books banned in schools? The books that "require banning" are good children's books. Isn't that the point?
jl6 10mo ago
Where does “ban” end and “parental controls” begin? These books aren’t banned any more than R-rated movies are banned on Disney+. Every one of the books on the list has some kind of mature theme that different parents will feel differently about what age is the right age to handle it.
- _vqpz 10mo ago
  Probably when it's the parents making the decision for their own kids, not another authority.
  - chlodwig 10mo ago
    Except the definition used in the article, a ban is when a parent group disagrees with the authorities (the librarians) and does not want the book in a tax-payer funded library: "PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished." So if a librarian goes to a conference and learns, "hey we need to remove these books from the lirbary because they are bigoted/racist/problematic" and they do so, that is not a book ban. But if parents say, "hey this book is not appropriate for our kids, this should not be in a school library", and they raise hell to get it removed, that is a book ban. The whole framing is dumb.
Mountain_Skies 10mo ago
Remember, Hacker News posters were wildly in favor of banning the discussion of the Lab Leak theory. Only a few spoke out against such bans and they were commonly met with floods of downvotes. There's lots of support in this community for controlling access to information and shaping narratives as long as it conforms to their particular ideology.
- vablings 10mo ago
  There is a difference between something being banned and preventing the spread of inaccuracies or misinformation (without suppressing any information) It is well accepted that the lab-leak theory is highly improbable, and all of the evidence is that it came from the wet markets.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  Self-curation and banning by an authority are completely different topics.
ghostoftiber 10mo ago
"The most banned books in America and here's where you can purchase them using our affiliate links".
- _vqpz 10mo ago
  banned != illegal
byronic 10mo ago
What does "ban" mean in this context? Like schools bought the book and it was removed, or it was on a "we won't approve this PO" list? At first glance this is a useless list
- rodrodrod 10mo ago
  https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
looperhacks 10mo ago
Since many are asking what a "ban" is in this context, the site has a FAQ: https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio... The gist: Books that were previously available but removed due to pressure from outside (or other teachers)
stuffn 10mo ago
This list is very obviously politically motivated. None of these are banned. I can find them trivially on Amazon. My benchmark for "ban" would be a black out from common resellers. There are common themes among all of them. All of them, your average parent, would rather their children not be exposed to in school. This list is more like "what should/shouldn't be acceptable for kids and teens". This is hardly a ban. It's at best parental control. But selling it as a ban is key to outrage culture and delivering their opinions about the current administration. Nothing is stopping a parent from purchasing these books for their child. Nothing is stopping them from finding them as a PDF, or at a local or online reseller. Pretending this is "taboo" information is an extremely poor attempt to hide political bikeshedding.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  > None of these are banned. I can find them trivially on Amazon. Redefining a term that is explicitly defined in the article. Ten yard penalty. > All of them, your average parent, would rather their children not be exposed to in school. Bullshit.
  - stuffn 10mo ago
    > Bullshit I tried to present a different opinion here and not flame anyone in my post. But since you're being inflammatory I feel it necessary to call out your terminally online sickness. The reddit/HN pseudo-intellectual far left navel gazing view of the world is wildly uncommon in real life. Sorry to break it to you but you have to realize normal, well adjusted, people have concerns about books detailing teenage sex and rape. If you don't, you should probably get your head checked. The authors of these books are likely similarly sick in the head.
legitster 10mo ago
> PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. So I think one thing to keep in mind is that books added or removed from shelves based on the editorial choices of the library staff is not considered a book ban - and it's why books like Mein Kampf or Lolita don't also show up on these lists despite being very intentionally kept off the shelves by librarians. Oftentimes school districts or libraries already have a system in place where offensive or non age-appropriate books can have restrictions placed on it based on parent or student feedback. All this to say I think it makes book bans a bit muddier - in some instances they might be legitimate pushback on aggressive editorialization by librarians. But in most instances, they are self-obviously performative and unnecessary.
- burnt-resistor 10mo ago
  In a controlled and editorialized context in the high school senior and college contexts (age 17+), Mein Kampf, Ted Kaczynski, and Marx should be taught to critically dissect bad ideas and immoral political prescriptions because it's important to teach future generations how to recognize and resist awful ideologies. Not doing so invites vulnerability to history rhyming more than it needs to.
- pcaharrier 10mo ago
  "it's why books like Mein Kampf or Lolita don't also show up on these lists despite being very intentionally kept off the shelves by librarians." It seems like they would count those books as being banned if they had a means for gathering the information. "Since 2021, there have been numerous accounts of quiet removals of books in libraries and classrooms by teachers and librarians. School districts have started issuing preemptive bans through 'do not buy' lists, barring titles from ever entering their libraries. . . . Therefore, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans is best thought of as a minimum count of book banning trends. This is a similar conclusion to that of the American Library Association, which routinely estimates that its counts reflect only a portion of the true number of books banned in schools."
chlodwig 10mo ago
Reminder: a "book ban" is simply when a there is book that is acclaimed by the establishment, available in book stores across America, on the shelves of thousands of school libraries, but somewhere, some school board, or parent group does not want it in their curriculum or a tax-payer funded library. A "book ban" is parents and taxpayers overriding curation the decisions of government librarians. It is simply a Russell conjugation: librarians curate books; parents and school boards ban books. Personally, I don't trust librarians or school boards, and I put a lot of work into curating reading material for my own children. Many of the books I value are out-of-print, or unavailable in any public library, whereas almost all these so-called "banned books" are available in most public libraries. So yeah, these lists get a giant eye-roll from me.
- amanaplanacanal 10mo ago
  I love this. People completely uneducated in the field in question (in this case education and library science) thinking they know more about a subject than the people with degrees from actually universities who studied the topic.
int32_64 10mo ago
It's hilarious that Barnes and Noble has a banned books section as a sort of marketing gimmick. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/banned-books/_/N-rtm https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/banned-books/_/N-rtm It makes you wonder what books Barnes and Noble has banned from being sold in their stores.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  No. That's an odd take. I assume B&N is simply showcasing some books that have been banned by others. Obviously, there's a marketing edge to it.
everdrive 10mo ago
One argument I've also heard in this regard is that at some level editorial decisions MUST be made. A local library cannot hold EVERY book. So, which ones must you include and which ones shouldn't you stock? That's obviously going to become a political question, but it's also important to remember that it's an unavoidable one.
- jfindper 10mo ago
  The books on this list are not considered banned because of decisions made by a librarian figuring out how to fill their limited space. Even if the librarian (or in some cases, even if the school district) wants to place the book on the shelves, they are not allowed to.
  - everdrive 10mo ago
    Ah, that's good to understand, thank you for correcting me.
- NoGravitas 10mo ago
  This is a decision that is normally made by school librarians, who have the education and training needed to make it.
worik 10mo ago
What an outrageous list! Mostly books about young people confronting the problems facing young people A window into the minds of adults. A distorted window, I hope, or there is no hole for those adults Protect children? Stop abusing, punishing and condemning them for being children. But no, ban books that might give them clues on coping What outrageous behavior, bless the librarians
spicymaki 10mo ago
The intellectual laziness I am seeing here is horrifying. Look I get that many of the HN crowd does not like "woke" ideology, but you should recognize that perhaps a book or some form of free expression you like will be banned in the future when the political winds change. In the US we are eroding constitutional norms due to democratic backsliding. The hard fought freedoms will be hard to get back and you don't know what part of the fence you will be on in the aftermath. My journey into professional software development was due to the efforts of the GNU organization that provided high quality compilers and tools along with a legal structure to promote the creation of more free software. The innovation was that code is speech and is protected by the first amendment (in the US). I have watched the software community devolve into just corrupt thievery due to the silicon valley "as long as I get rich, I am good" culture. That culture is seeping into every aspect of our social lives leading to deep enshittification. Monopolization of the means of artistic expression due to financialization is ruining everything.
drcongo 10mo ago
This is the most Hacker News thread ever. Endless comments from people who didn't read the article, the criteria, and in some cases apparently the title, leaping in to shout about how these books aren't banned.
- Levitz 10mo ago
  Really? I think you should get reported and banned for this comment. ...By which I mean people should be free to speak about it and to vote it in whatever way they deem. See, the words we use have meanings, and stretching them to benefit our agenda is a shitty thing to do.
- gumby271 10mo ago
  I like that the other reply here is the most Hacker News reply in the Most Hacker News thread.
  - IAmBroom 10mo ago
    I think I love you. E-marry me.
burnt-resistor 10mo ago
Slaughterhouse-Five is required reading. I fail to see how Vonnegut is offensive to anyone except warmongers and ignorant rubes. At least Iowa has largely went the other direction recently by removing it and Maus from absurd book bans.
BrandoElFollito 10mo ago
We donnt have a list of banned books in France, or any discussion about that. I now wonder whether this is great (freedom and so on) or terrible (manipulation and so on)
- _mocha 10mo ago
  France bans hijabs in schools, so there's certainly more work left across the pond...
khaki54 10mo ago
What? Mein Kampf and Anarchists Cookbook didn't even make the list at all? Something's fishy here
- kjellsbells 10mo ago
  Not necessarily. PEN describes a ban as a book being removed from a library. If Mein Kampf was never in the library, there's no Mein Kampf to remove.
jimt1234 10mo ago
How about we protect schoolchildren from actual school shootings rather than books about school shootings? Just a thought.
- krapp 10mo ago
  We can't. Any means of effectively protecting schoolchildren from school shootings would by definition be an abridgement of the public's right to keep and bear arms, and thus unconstitutional. For some reason the First Amendment is a lot more negotiable for the American public than the second, so banning books will probably never be as politically intractable as banning guns in the US.
  - IAmBroom 10mo ago
    Most of America seems unable to count past two. By two's.
mrguyorama 10mo ago
My favorite part of this argument is that the "It's not a ban" folks always insist "But but parents authority" Mhmm, and what about when those parents are wrong? Does the state not have a duty to educate people even when parents think that the moon landing is a hoax or plate tectonics aren't real? When your parent is an insane person, sometimes a school is your only protection. But so many conservatives find this unconscionable. How dare you! Parents can never be wrong! The point of public schools is to make an educated populace. Not a populace that only knows what their parents want them to know. Yes, this means that your kids might learn something you disagree with! The horror! Something like "America is a republic, not a democracy" like I was taught, or "slavery wasn't that bad" like a lot in the south are taught. Ah, turns out they never really cared that people were getting taught things their parents didn't agree with. Only when children are taught things contrary to fundamentalist christian beliefs. The point of education is so that your child can see multiple narratives and make their own choices, so they can learn to evaluate narratives and figure out which might have substance and which might just be nonsense. But the people who start their children into church before they can form full sentences really seem to hate that idea. I wonder why...
_zagj 10mo ago
> 6. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. 126 bans. For those unaware, this book, and the ensuing Netflix original, was one colossal > gee, who could have possibly anticipated this? The book is about a depressed teenage girl who commits suicide after mailing boxes of recordings to the peers whom she felt wronged her, where she outlines the ways in which they are responsible for her "unaliving" herself. The book glamorizes teenage suicide, specifically of white teenage girls (as for reasons unclear, Jay Asher just had to disregard "write what you know" in favor of making the protagonist be both female and not Jewish), achieving a kind of retribution and redemption through suicide. Not only did this book get published and mass marketed to youths, Netflix actually greenlit it, despite warnings from experts, and after decades of the news media exercising extreme caution and tact over reporting on teen suicide, given the well-established risks of copycat contagion. The result? https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/30/teen-suicides-netflix-13-reasons-why-study https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/30/teen-su... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817407/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817407/ Even reporting on adult suicides can be dicey: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191405 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  Yes, evil actions can have some good results. Sweeping arrests of minorities will likely capture some actual criminals. The principle is still bad.
  - _zagj 10mo ago
    Thirteen Reasons Why was the literary equivalent of a seedy Discord server that parents justifiably would want to keep their children away from. It never should have been marketed to children, and shouldn't appear in school libraries.
timonofathens 10mo ago
[dead]
ndsipa_pomu 10mo ago
So, a book about school shootings is banned, but nothing meaningful is done to prevent school shootings? I don't know why the parents allow their kids to be put in such danger that they have to practise shooting drills and get bullet proof backpacks.
rsynnott 10mo ago
> 4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Wait, seriously?! I mean that's basically teen drama levels of tame, IIRC. > 12. The Handmaid’s Tale Well, that's a bit meta.
daft_pink 10mo ago
It’s obvous that some books shouldn’t be a part of the curriculum, but they should be allowed in the library. Just sayin'

89 points by FigurativeVoid 10mo ago

orthecreedence 10mo ago

But, gee willickers, where is Mein Kampf on the list?

NickC25 10mo ago
Or Space Relations, a book by the father of the president's former lawyer and attorney general (who himself was a huge player in Epstein circles), which was about a society of "elites" who engage in sex trafficking of minors. That's not banned...I wonder why?
yettel 10mo ago
[flagged]
m00x 10mo ago
Because they define a ban as books that were previously available but aren't, not books who were never available. You also won't see The Passing of the Great Race in the list.
bjourne 10mo ago
It's not there because it is readily available in many US public and college libraries. If it isn't in your institution's collection your librarian will happily help you order it from from a nearby one.
- Amezarak 10mo ago
  Librarians around the US have been doing mass purges of older books, especially politically sensitive older books and often for political reasons. There’s lots of news on this, if you’re interested. The problem also exists in Canada. I just checked my local library SYSTEM- consisting of about a dozen libraries - and it is in fact nowhere in there. It’s possible that, were my ILL privileges not restricted for “excessive use” (I don’t read new books, so nearly all my checkouts were ILl), that they would condescend to get it to me that way. Of course, they might not. And ILL has tighter restrictions and is more inconvenient. The primary mission of libraries today is not education, preservation of knowledge, or even literacy. The old mission statements are all dead. It’s entertainment and community support. Either way, this is a silly argument. All these “banned” books are also readily available in your public library - they’re pop lit, your local library likely has more copies of Maas than all the Greek writers of antiquity combined. Edit: on page 2 of 11, I have already counted 62 copies of Sarah J Maas book. As an institution for serving the public entertainment, my library system is doing great.
  - bjourne 10mo ago
    Considering your hallucinations about "mass purges of older books" I would consider your claim about Mein Kampf not being found in your "local library SYSTEM" as bs. You haven't checked, don't know how to check, or don't know what a "local library SYSTEM" is. It is unfortunate that utter falsehoods about how public libraries work are used to justify or somehow "balance" banning books about adolescence.
    - Amezarak 10mo ago
      It’s unfortunate that people believe modern libraries are the educational and literary sanctums envisioned by their founders rather than modern entertainment and community centers. Search for “deaccessioning” and “equity based weeding” and you will find all the information you could wish for. The classics are being thrown into dumpsters or pulped to make room for more computers and Sarah J Maas. In one particularly egregious Canadian case, all books published before 2008 were destroyed. In many cases this is politically driven. Perhaps you know how the use to work, but not how they do now. It’s very grim. Many invaluable niche works, particularly of local history but also of technical subjects, have now been destroyed forever by librarians. The assumption too is that everything is probably digitized somewhere so it doesn’t even matter. Cultural and political and funding concerns as actual literacy has declined have completely subsumed that original purpose of libraries. > You haven't checked, don't know how to check, or don't know what a "local library SYSTEM" is. There’s no need to call me a liar. I read quite a lot and end up buying nearly all my books nowadays because the library system rarely had even very notable older books, but I still check. It takes about 30 seconds to type into the collection search bar. I did, in fact, look before I wrote that comment. Perhaps you should have not been so sure when you wrote your original comment that it was definitely there. Meanwhile, Maas has at least several dozen and I would suppose a few hundred copies of her books in the system. So, according to you it’s no big deal if the book is in the public library - well I can assure you Maas is several times more likely to be in any local public library than Hitler, so it sounds like there’s nothing to be concerned about. Your comment is entirely applicable to these Maas books: “ its not there because it is readily available in many US public and college libraries. If it isn't in your institution's collection your librarian will happily help you order it from from a nearby one.”

Animats 10mo ago

Maas' Throne of Glass series? Why?

cogman10 10mo ago
Being unfamiliar with the series, a short google makes me believe it's because some (a lot?) of the characters are bisexual.
- vablings 10mo ago
  That seems insane to me. There are plenty of bisexual individuals that children will encounter in the real-world no. I could sympathize with banning of books that are of a certain obscenity but if purely because they are bisexual that sounds unhinged
  - cogman10 10mo ago
    That was the underlying motivation of a lot of these book bans and why they were so open ended. The idaho law explicitly calls out "homosexuality" as a reason for removing a book.
  - orthecreedence 10mo ago
    [flagged]
  - UncleMeat 10mo ago
    It is not insane. Bigots want there to be no visible LGBT people in society. "Your child will encounter a gay person someday" is not an argument they care about because they would also like to ensure that gay people cannot be visible in other parts of society.
  - vkou 10mo ago
    > That seems insane to me. That's because it is, and the people pushing for this are.
  - IAmBroom 10mo ago

mjfl 10mo ago

[dead]

nerdjon 10mo ago

There is a part of me seriously considering making a bookshelf dedicated to all of these banned books. I don't understand the logic of banning these books, do they act like the internet doesn't exist? Kids will find this information, I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school. Then again being short sited is one of their strong suits. (Not downplaying banned books, I just can't understand thinking it is a good idea)

jfindper 10mo ago
>There is a part of me seriously considering making a bookshelf dedicated to all of these banned books. My local bookstore proudly features a table of "banned books" right at the entrance. It's a pretty good advertisement!
seg_lol 10mo ago
The reason to ban books is so that people that wouldn't normally cross paths with that book will never be affected by it. Book bans are not designed to stop people that know about these books and the ideas they contain. They know that those people will still find them and read them. > I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school. Lots of kids didn't and they don't know they didn't and that is the point.
- nerdjon 10mo ago
  I mean I get that point and I get what they think they are doing. But (well until the last couple of years) you would have still seen "different" people on tv and in movies. And I get that the point is to make it so the kids are not being exposed to different ideas and beliefs. I am just struggling to understand how that is actually a realistic idea in todays world.
  - UncleMeat 10mo ago
    Because they aren't stopping here. Project 2025's discussion of age restriction for pornographic websites spends all of its time talking about websites with LGBT content, not actual porn. This is a movement to hide all queerness from young people. School libraries are just a foothold.

riazrizvi 10mo ago

I hate the current trend in histrionic social media. A ‘banned book’ is one that you are not allowed to own by the State. You face fines, detention, interrogation, prison, torture, execution. Examples are 1984, The Satanic Verses. Countries that maintain book bans are Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan. Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds. It cannot avoid taking on some angle, since any incomplete collection is an editorial choice.

jfindper 10mo ago
>A ‘banned book’ is one that you are not allowed to own by the State. >Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds. At least some of these books are banned from schools by state-level law, not because the school district chose to not stock it.
- m00x 10mo ago
  Which books and which law? Aren't there other books that are banned for legitimate reasons like hate speech and racial hate that aren't included here?
  - macintux 10mo ago
    Florida bill 1069 allows parents to challenge the inclusion of books in the library, but only explicitly identifies books related to sexual preferences/conduct/etc. https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/... The bill is all about pronouns, heterosexuality, abstinence, and getting books out of libraries on those grounds.
    - m00x 10mo ago
      Inclusion != ban. A ban would be you'd get in trouble for having the book in your possession, which isn't the case here.

renewiltord 10mo ago

How does a “book ban” in a school work? The school is presumably only going to have a limited set of books. If I wanted to ban a book I’d just make it seem like a resource reorganization. “Oh we’re just focusing more on educational content around mathematics. These trans books will come around in a later reorg” and so on. Is it like if you bring the book to school you’ll be sent home or something?

cogman10 10mo ago
Here's how it works in idaho [1] Most schools (at least in Idaho) have libraries attached to the school. [1] https://www.acluidaho.org/app/uploads/2024/05/final_2024_05_hb_710_onepage.pdf https://www.acluidaho.org/app/uploads/2024/05/final_2024_05_...
- renewiltord 10mo ago
  Thank you. That's actually quite helpful. So it affects book selection at the library but actual ownership and bringing the book to school are unaffected. I understand why the opponents of these 'bans' call them that, but it's funny that the proponents do as well. One would imagine their goals better served through deception.
Mountain_Skies 10mo ago
My high school would pull the book from the shelf but make it still available by request. Before the start of the next school year, it would be placed back on the shelf. Typically, whoever complained the previous year would have moved on to other things by then.

slg 10mo ago

I wonder how the proponents of banning books like this don't have an "Are we the baddies?" moment. What precedent is there for history to look kindly on this type of behavior? Is there a single fiction book that you can point to that was banned in that past that let's say 60% of people today would agree was necessary (i.e. it would be in schools if there wasn't a ban) and appropriate to ban? It always seems like within a generation or two, most people agree the prior efforts to ban books were wrong, then a little time elapses, and we start banning new books again.

School-Cotton 10mo ago
There are no "banned books" in the US. Using that term is inaccurate, and IMO a bit of an insult to people living in countries that actually do ban books. What there actually are, are books that schools refuse to carry in their libraries because they don't think the content is appropriate for children. I would assume this happens in every country.
- slg 10mo ago
  >books that schools refuse to carry in their libraries You are just fundamentally wrong on the facts here. This list is specifically books that were removed from libraries due to outside forces. I'm not worried about school librarians deciding that a book's content makes it unsuitable for their students. These are situations in which parents or government officials are telling the school to remove a book already present. https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
nickff 10mo ago
I am not a proponent of any of these bans, but it seems like someone needs to decide which books are featured at schools, and these 'bans' are just vetoes of certain books enacted by parents or school boards. I am not sure why a librarian or some school administrator should have complete authority to select any books they may prefer. This seems similar to a curriculum, in that the citizens and/or school board direct the educators what they should be (and should not be) teaching.

chaseadam17 10mo ago

Seems like most of the books deal with complex real-world issues like sexual identity, racism, school shootings, etc. and are banned due to "sexual" or "violent" content. My guess is these criteria can be selectively interpreted to target books that go against political or cultural beliefs but there is obviously some merit to wanting to protect young kids from certain topics. I wish the article mentioned what ages the books are banned for because that seems like an important piece of data. I'm assuming it includes all K-12 public schools?

cogman10 10mo ago
That's part of the issue. With Idaho it's black and white. Under 18, these books are banned. I'd agree with limiting access based on age, but a lot of these laws have a binary if not outright ban on library access. What's appropriate to a 10, 12, 14, and 16 year old is pretty broad as these kids mature fast in a few short years. I see no reason why any 16 year old should be restricted from any book.
- chaseadam17 10mo ago
  Agree it shouldn't be so binary. Only thing I'd add is that I believe it makes sense for schools to err towards restricting books until the upper age limit of "appropriate" because parents who choose to expose their kids to those topics earlier can still do so (e.g. by borrowing the book from the public library or giving their kid more permissive internet access) without having tax dollars used to undermine the values of those who don't. It's not an easy issue but for better or worse, I'd bet what books schools "ban" actually has fairly little impact on what kids are exposed to, so this might all be increasingly a mute point.
- mapontosevenths 10mo ago
  I was.. precocious as a youngster and read books that were far above my grade level and what most adults would consider to be "safe" for children. The first time I tried to check out one of those very adult books the librarian called my parents and asked if it was OK. My parents said "Yes. Let him have whatever he wants." They made a note in my account and the next day they let me have have whatever I wanted. If that hadn't happened I would be a very different, and much dumber, person now. I don't understand what the issue is with just asking the parents? I suspect that most of the people responsible for these "bans" don't want that to happen because some parents will approve of things they don't. Most of this really IS an attempted ban rather than just "appropriate age related content" issue. They don't want to control what THEIR kids can see. They want to control what YOUR kids can see.

Levitz 10mo ago

I find the dishonesty really off-putting. None of these books are "banned". School libraries don't stock them, they might be removed from curricula, but they are not "banned". It's just so bizarre to make an argument (A very valid one!) about freedom of information by openly lying to the public.

jfindper 10mo ago
>I find the dishonesty really off-putting. None of these books are "banned". School libraries don't stock them, they might be removed from curricula, but they are not "banned" You can look into it, if you're curious! Some of these books are indeed banned from schools (even if they want to stock it!), by state-level law no less! It's not a curation choice.
- bigstrat2003 10mo ago
  In that case it would be better to say "banned from school libraries", because they are not banned in general.
  - jfindper 10mo ago
    We're talking about an article titled "The Most Banned Books _in U.S. Schools_", I thought the "in U.S. schools" part provided the context, but I suppose not.
  - orthecreedence 10mo ago
    > banned from school libraries So, banned then?
  - IAmBroom 10mo ago
    Forget DNRTFA; you did not even read the entire seven-word title.
- threemux 10mo ago
  There's state-level law saying it's illegal to own or read some books on this list? Or just that it's illegal for school libraries to stock it and/or include it in curricula?

colechristensen 10mo ago

The number 1 banned book in this list has 147 bans... there are something like 15,000 school districts in the US. This doesn't seem to be a particularly large problem.

BryantD 10mo ago
Depends on how big the chilling effect is, no? For example, if a school librarian notices that a colleague in another district loses their job or worse, gets personal threats because of a specific book, they might well remove a book from shelves before it's challenged. That is not a rebuttal to your point -- I don't have a guess on whether or not the chilling effect is significant. I'm just noting there are follow-on effects to be considered.
- colechristensen 10mo ago
  My point is we all need to moderate our reactions to things based on actual scale, across the political spectrum rare events are being amplified to make people think they're prevalent disasters and it distorts too many peoples' reality. There are much worse, much bigger problems and we need to constantly be reminding people of how big issues actually are. Book bannings are concerning but what is the size of the actual impact? I see this issue more of as an embarrassment for a handful of schools and boards who are bowing to moralizing fools, people are acting like they're afraid of an escalation to Fahrenheit 451 when we really should be mocking the book banners for their foolishness instead of being afraid of them. This is far from the only issue suffering from a lack of sense of scale.
  - marpstar 10mo ago
    It goes far beyond that. The Iowa legislature has already moved to make changes to how libraries work in Iowa as a result of all of the attention these issues are getting here. They're essentially trying to condense the power to the state level instead of at the municipal level, where it belongs. It's a power grab that'll have repercussions that may very well cause the smallest of libraries here to cease existing. And it all started with people complaining about books in the library.

EcommerceFlow 10mo ago

Filtering content for children is not 'banning books'. By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country, even though it's probably the most consequential piece of literature ever written. This continuous doublespeak is even more humorous considering the site has actual shopping links to every 'banned book'.

m00x 10mo ago
Agreed, this is very politically charged. The method for qualifying a "banned book" is not described in detail and seems to only include those with a political lean, when there are obviously other books that aren't shown to kids that didn't make the list.
- giraffe_lady 10mo ago
  The system they're using is in their faq, in detail. Basically it is books that were previously available but have been removed due to external pressure.
  - m00x 10mo ago
    So it's not really fair to say it's a ban. You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. Would you agree for the school to have the book "The Passing of the Great Race", a famously racist and white supremacist book in your school library?
    - macintux 10mo ago
      For high school students, sure. I'd be very uncomfortable, but know thy enemy.
      - antonymoose 10mo ago
        In my state (South Carolina) this is exactly how they handled it. If a parent or activist wishes see a book banned it goes through reviewed based on school-level appropriateness. A book like The Kite Runner with its deprecations of Bacha Bazi are a bit rough for a 5th grader but considered acceptable for a High Schooler given the cultural significance of the work.

bell-cot 10mo ago

I'd bet 90-ish percent of these banned books could be made available to 90% or so of U.S. schoolchildren within a month-ish - if a bunch of anti-book-banning idealists cared to chip in donations to buy up publication rights, then publish the books on a simple readbannedbooks.org web site.

Amezarak 10mo ago
They already are. They’re all mass pop lit on this list and the number of removals is very tiny.

everdrive 10mo ago

Banning books in a school is much more performative these days than in times past. Kids these days can pirate the books, find them at a store, order them from Amazon, etc. In the old days the concern might have been that kids would get access to the wrong ideas -- and crucially, you might actually be able to prevent that sort of access. Now, it seems to be be more about representation: "Do we want to say our school supports the ideas in this book?" I'm not defending book banning, but people seem to treat book banning as if it's still the 1950s, and schools are really censoring information in any sort of meanginful way. Instead, all the schools are doing is taking a stand and saying "this book does not represent us." Mind you, I still think this is bad, but I'm a bit baffled why people treat this topic the way they do.

vablings 10mo ago
Once again feels like terrible overreach of the so-called nanny state under the guise of "think of the children!". Parents should be the ultimate authority on what kind of media their child consumes, and they should be responsible. Afterall legally children are basically an extension of the adult who is responsible for them

m00x 10mo ago

It doesn't seem like it's directly book ban, and more of a selection of books that are deemed inappropriate for kids according to the school which Pen disagrees with. Popular banned books like Lolita, mein kampf are not here, but they are also not in U.S. schools. There are also no books listed here that schools definitely (for good reason) do not have, like COVID denialism, cult books, etc. I'm happy to be proven wrong in the comments though, this is just from my cursory look at how they define it.

worik 10mo ago
> Popular banned books like Lolita, mein kampf are not here, but they are also not in U.S. school Honest question: Are those books banned in schools? The books that "require banning" are good children's books. Isn't that the point?

jl6 10mo ago

Where does “ban” end and “parental controls” begin? These books aren’t banned any more than R-rated movies are banned on Disney+. Every one of the books on the list has some kind of mature theme that different parents will feel differently about what age is the right age to handle it.

_vqpz 10mo ago
Probably when it's the parents making the decision for their own kids, not another authority.
- chlodwig 10mo ago
  Except the definition used in the article, a ban is when a parent group disagrees with the authorities (the librarians) and does not want the book in a tax-payer funded library: "PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished." So if a librarian goes to a conference and learns, "hey we need to remove these books from the lirbary because they are bigoted/racist/problematic" and they do so, that is not a book ban. But if parents say, "hey this book is not appropriate for our kids, this should not be in a school library", and they raise hell to get it removed, that is a book ban. The whole framing is dumb.

Mountain_Skies 10mo ago

Remember, Hacker News posters were wildly in favor of banning the discussion of the Lab Leak theory. Only a few spoke out against such bans and they were commonly met with floods of downvotes. There's lots of support in this community for controlling access to information and shaping narratives as long as it conforms to their particular ideology.

vablings 10mo ago
There is a difference between something being banned and preventing the spread of inaccuracies or misinformation (without suppressing any information) It is well accepted that the lab-leak theory is highly improbable, and all of the evidence is that it came from the wet markets.
IAmBroom 10mo ago
Self-curation and banning by an authority are completely different topics.

ghostoftiber 10mo ago

"The most banned books in America and here's where you can purchase them using our affiliate links".

_vqpz 10mo ago
banned != illegal

byronic 10mo ago

What does "ban" mean in this context? Like schools bought the book and it was removed, or it was on a "we won't approve this PO" list? At first glance this is a useless list

rodrodrod 10mo ago
https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...

looperhacks 10mo ago

Since many are asking what a "ban" is in this context, the site has a FAQ: https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/ https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio... The gist: Books that were previously available but removed due to pressure from outside (or other teachers)

stuffn 10mo ago

This list is very obviously politically motivated. None of these are banned. I can find them trivially on Amazon. My benchmark for "ban" would be a black out from common resellers. There are common themes among all of them. All of them, your average parent, would rather their children not be exposed to in school. This list is more like "what should/shouldn't be acceptable for kids and teens". This is hardly a ban. It's at best parental control. But selling it as a ban is key to outrage culture and delivering their opinions about the current administration. Nothing is stopping a parent from purchasing these books for their child. Nothing is stopping them from finding them as a PDF, or at a local or online reseller. Pretending this is "taboo" information is an extremely poor attempt to hide political bikeshedding.

IAmBroom 10mo ago
> None of these are banned. I can find them trivially on Amazon. Redefining a term that is explicitly defined in the article. Ten yard penalty. > All of them, your average parent, would rather their children not be exposed to in school. Bullshit.
- stuffn 10mo ago
  > Bullshit I tried to present a different opinion here and not flame anyone in my post. But since you're being inflammatory I feel it necessary to call out your terminally online sickness. The reddit/HN pseudo-intellectual far left navel gazing view of the world is wildly uncommon in real life. Sorry to break it to you but you have to realize normal, well adjusted, people have concerns about books detailing teenage sex and rape. If you don't, you should probably get your head checked. The authors of these books are likely similarly sick in the head.

legitster 10mo ago

> PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. So I think one thing to keep in mind is that books added or removed from shelves based on the editorial choices of the library staff is not considered a book ban - and it's why books like Mein Kampf or Lolita don't also show up on these lists despite being very intentionally kept off the shelves by librarians. Oftentimes school districts or libraries already have a system in place where offensive or non age-appropriate books can have restrictions placed on it based on parent or student feedback. All this to say I think it makes book bans a bit muddier - in some instances they might be legitimate pushback on aggressive editorialization by librarians. But in most instances, they are self-obviously performative and unnecessary.

burnt-resistor 10mo ago
In a controlled and editorialized context in the high school senior and college contexts (age 17+), Mein Kampf, Ted Kaczynski, and Marx should be taught to critically dissect bad ideas and immoral political prescriptions because it's important to teach future generations how to recognize and resist awful ideologies. Not doing so invites vulnerability to history rhyming more than it needs to.
pcaharrier 10mo ago
"it's why books like Mein Kampf or Lolita don't also show up on these lists despite being very intentionally kept off the shelves by librarians." It seems like they would count those books as being banned if they had a means for gathering the information. "Since 2021, there have been numerous accounts of quiet removals of books in libraries and classrooms by teachers and librarians. School districts have started issuing preemptive bans through 'do not buy' lists, barring titles from ever entering their libraries. . . . Therefore, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans is best thought of as a minimum count of book banning trends. This is a similar conclusion to that of the American Library Association, which routinely estimates that its counts reflect only a portion of the true number of books banned in schools."

chlodwig 10mo ago

Reminder: a "book ban" is simply when a there is book that is acclaimed by the establishment, available in book stores across America, on the shelves of thousands of school libraries, but somewhere, some school board, or parent group does not want it in their curriculum or a tax-payer funded library. A "book ban" is parents and taxpayers overriding curation the decisions of government librarians. It is simply a Russell conjugation: librarians curate books; parents and school boards ban books. Personally, I don't trust librarians or school boards, and I put a lot of work into curating reading material for my own children. Many of the books I value are out-of-print, or unavailable in any public library, whereas almost all these so-called "banned books" are available in most public libraries. So yeah, these lists get a giant eye-roll from me.

amanaplanacanal 10mo ago
I love this. People completely uneducated in the field in question (in this case education and library science) thinking they know more about a subject than the people with degrees from actually universities who studied the topic.

int32_64 10mo ago

It's hilarious that Barnes and Noble has a banned books section as a sort of marketing gimmick. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/banned-books/_/N-rtm https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/banned-books/_/N-rtm It makes you wonder what books Barnes and Noble has banned from being sold in their stores.

IAmBroom 10mo ago
No. That's an odd take. I assume B&N is simply showcasing some books that have been banned by others. Obviously, there's a marketing edge to it.

everdrive 10mo ago

One argument I've also heard in this regard is that at some level editorial decisions MUST be made. A local library cannot hold EVERY book. So, which ones must you include and which ones shouldn't you stock? That's obviously going to become a political question, but it's also important to remember that it's an unavoidable one.

jfindper 10mo ago
The books on this list are not considered banned because of decisions made by a librarian figuring out how to fill their limited space. Even if the librarian (or in some cases, even if the school district) wants to place the book on the shelves, they are not allowed to.
- everdrive 10mo ago
  Ah, that's good to understand, thank you for correcting me.
NoGravitas 10mo ago
This is a decision that is normally made by school librarians, who have the education and training needed to make it.

worik 10mo ago

What an outrageous list! Mostly books about young people confronting the problems facing young people A window into the minds of adults. A distorted window, I hope, or there is no hole for those adults Protect children? Stop abusing, punishing and condemning them for being children. But no, ban books that might give them clues on coping What outrageous behavior, bless the librarians

spicymaki 10mo ago

The intellectual laziness I am seeing here is horrifying. Look I get that many of the HN crowd does not like "woke" ideology, but you should recognize that perhaps a book or some form of free expression you like will be banned in the future when the political winds change. In the US we are eroding constitutional norms due to democratic backsliding. The hard fought freedoms will be hard to get back and you don't know what part of the fence you will be on in the aftermath. My journey into professional software development was due to the efforts of the GNU organization that provided high quality compilers and tools along with a legal structure to promote the creation of more free software. The innovation was that code is speech and is protected by the first amendment (in the US). I have watched the software community devolve into just corrupt thievery due to the silicon valley "as long as I get rich, I am good" culture. That culture is seeping into every aspect of our social lives leading to deep enshittification. Monopolization of the means of artistic expression due to financialization is ruining everything.

drcongo 10mo ago

This is the most Hacker News thread ever. Endless comments from people who didn't read the article, the criteria, and in some cases apparently the title, leaping in to shout about how these books aren't banned.

Levitz 10mo ago
Really? I think you should get reported and banned for this comment. ...By which I mean people should be free to speak about it and to vote it in whatever way they deem. See, the words we use have meanings, and stretching them to benefit our agenda is a shitty thing to do.
gumby271 10mo ago
I like that the other reply here is the most Hacker News reply in the Most Hacker News thread.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  I think I love you. E-marry me.

burnt-resistor 10mo ago

Slaughterhouse-Five is required reading. I fail to see how Vonnegut is offensive to anyone except warmongers and ignorant rubes. At least Iowa has largely went the other direction recently by removing it and Maus from absurd book bans.

BrandoElFollito 10mo ago

We donnt have a list of banned books in France, or any discussion about that. I now wonder whether this is great (freedom and so on) or terrible (manipulation and so on)

_mocha 10mo ago
France bans hijabs in schools, so there's certainly more work left across the pond...

khaki54 10mo ago

What? Mein Kampf and Anarchists Cookbook didn't even make the list at all? Something's fishy here

kjellsbells 10mo ago
Not necessarily. PEN describes a ban as a book being removed from a library. If Mein Kampf was never in the library, there's no Mein Kampf to remove.

jimt1234 10mo ago

How about we protect schoolchildren from actual school shootings rather than books about school shootings? Just a thought.

krapp 10mo ago
We can't. Any means of effectively protecting schoolchildren from school shootings would by definition be an abridgement of the public's right to keep and bear arms, and thus unconstitutional. For some reason the First Amendment is a lot more negotiable for the American public than the second, so banning books will probably never be as politically intractable as banning guns in the US.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  Most of America seems unable to count past two. By two's.

mrguyorama 10mo ago

My favorite part of this argument is that the "It's not a ban" folks always insist "But but parents authority" Mhmm, and what about when those parents are wrong? Does the state not have a duty to educate people even when parents think that the moon landing is a hoax or plate tectonics aren't real? When your parent is an insane person, sometimes a school is your only protection. But so many conservatives find this unconscionable. How dare you! Parents can never be wrong! The point of public schools is to make an educated populace. Not a populace that only knows what their parents want them to know. Yes, this means that your kids might learn something you disagree with! The horror! Something like "America is a republic, not a democracy" like I was taught, or "slavery wasn't that bad" like a lot in the south are taught. Ah, turns out they never really cared that people were getting taught things their parents didn't agree with. Only when children are taught things contrary to fundamentalist christian beliefs. The point of education is so that your child can see multiple narratives and make their own choices, so they can learn to evaluate narratives and figure out which might have substance and which might just be nonsense. But the people who start their children into church before they can form full sentences really seem to hate that idea. I wonder why...

_zagj 10mo ago

> 6. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. 126 bans. For those unaware, this book, and the ensuing Netflix original, was one colossal > gee, who could have possibly anticipated this? The book is about a depressed teenage girl who commits suicide after mailing boxes of recordings to the peers whom she felt wronged her, where she outlines the ways in which they are responsible for her "unaliving" herself. The book glamorizes teenage suicide, specifically of white teenage girls (as for reasons unclear, Jay Asher just had to disregard "write what you know" in favor of making the protagonist be both female and not Jewish), achieving a kind of retribution and redemption through suicide. Not only did this book get published and mass marketed to youths, Netflix actually greenlit it, despite warnings from experts, and after decades of the news media exercising extreme caution and tact over reporting on teen suicide, given the well-established risks of copycat contagion. The result? https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/30/teen-suicides-netflix-13-reasons-why-study https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/30/teen-su... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817407/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817407/ Even reporting on adult suicides can be dicey: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191405 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

IAmBroom 10mo ago
Yes, evil actions can have some good results. Sweeping arrests of minorities will likely capture some actual criminals. The principle is still bad.
- _zagj 10mo ago
  Thirteen Reasons Why was the literary equivalent of a seedy Discord server that parents justifiably would want to keep their children away from. It never should have been marketed to children, and shouldn't appear in school libraries.

timonofathens 10mo ago

[dead]

ndsipa_pomu 10mo ago

So, a book about school shootings is banned, but nothing meaningful is done to prevent school shootings? I don't know why the parents allow their kids to be put in such danger that they have to practise shooting drills and get bullet proof backpacks.

rsynnott 10mo ago

> 4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Wait, seriously?! I mean that's basically teen drama levels of tame, IIRC. > 12. The Handmaid’s Tale Well, that's a bit meta.

daft_pink 10mo ago

It’s obvous that some books shouldn’t be a part of the curriculum, but they should be allowed in the library. Just sayin'