SLJ Staff

Utah has added Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott to its list of books banned at all public schools; the Texas state board of education wants legislation giving it  control of school library collections; and Crank by Ellen Hopkins remains on South Carolina high school shelves, but students will need parental permission.

Parents and patrons want the LGBTQIA+ romance by Alice Oseman removed; a Tennessee district orders the immediate removal of 150 books; and a school board is set to review collections in a Virginia district in search of "sexually explicit" material that goes against policy.

March 2025  will be five years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We will mark the anniversary by sharing your memories of spring 2020 and the months that followed or thoughts on the impact that you still see today.

The South Carolina Board of Education allowed three classics to remain in libraries and classrooms but removed seven titles from all public schools; Arizona district pays nearly $90,000 to settle book ban lawsuit; 25 books and graphic novel series removed from a Pennsylvania district. 

More than 10,000 book bans in public schools in the 2023–24 school year represented a nearly 200 percent rise in book bans. The new Index of School Book Bans offers a state-by-state and district-by-district database of book bans searchable by author and title.

Readers are "questioning everything," including librarians in popular culture.

Widespread outrage and condemnation forced Montgomery County (TX) library system to return Colonization and the Wampanoag Story to the nonfiction shelves; a Tennessee county school district has removed more than 400 books; a Kentucky county district removes books after conservative mailer; and more.

Saturday is Freedom to Read Day of Action; New Jersey State Library receives IMLS grant for information literacy initiative; Scholastic reveals next "The Hunger Games" cover; and more in News Bites.

After a challenge, Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs was moved to fiction at the Montgomery County (TX) libraries; Kokila won't back down from its mission to empower children and publish diverse titles; and more news.