'Looking for Alaska' by John Green made No. 5 on the American Library Association's list of most-challenged library books in 2022, as the overall number of challenges doubled from 2021.
The number of reported challenges to books doubled in 2022 — and the number of challenges to unique titles was up nearly 40 percent over 2021 — according to data released by the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom Monday.
Each year the ALA releases data on books it says have been most often challenged for removal from public and school library shelves. Though the group says it’s not possible to track every challenge, and that many go unreported, the data come through a variety of sources, including news stories and voluntary reports sent to the Office of Intellectual Freedom.
This year’s report includes an expanded list of the 13 books most challenged in 2022, as there were the same number of banning efforts against several of the books. Overall, the ALA says that 2,571 unique titles were banned or challenged. Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada, president of the American Library Association, says it used to be that titles were challenged when a parent or other community member saw a book in the library they didn’t like. But times have changed: “Now we’re seeing organized attempts by groups to censor multiple titles throughout the country without actually having read many of these books.”
Pelayo-Lozada says that despite the high challenge numbers, a library association poll shows a large majority of Americans don’t believe in banning books.
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