The 10 Most Banned Books (and What We Can Learn From Them)
2021 has been a big year for calls to ban books. There were 729 attempts to censor 1,597 books in libraries, according to the American Library Association, the highest since the ALA began keeping records 20 years ago. Most of them were school libraries.
Instead of listing the ten most banned books of 2021, I ran through the top 50. Almost all of the top books are about LGBTQ+, today’s hottest cultural enemies of the intolerant, but I wanted to make a broader cut. bigotry as a reminder that they don’t just hate gays. They hate almost everyone else too!
Here are 10 of the 50 most contested or banned books in 2021, plus what we can learn from each title’s targeting.