Facts about Banned Books in the United States
- 06
Ulysses by James Joyce was banned from entering the United States as obscene until a landmark 1933 federal court ruling by Judge John Woolsey allowed its publication.
- 05
Most book challenges in the United States occur in school libraries and classrooms, with books featuring LGBTQ+ themes consistently ranking among the most frequently challenged in recent years.
- 04
Art Spiegelman's Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, became a prominent banned books controversy after a Tennessee school district removed it in 2022.
- 03
In Board of Education v. Pico (1982), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school boards cannot remove books from library shelves simply because they disagree with their content.
- 02
Banned Books Week, an annual event celebrating the freedom to read, was launched in 1982 by the American Library Association and booksellers in response to a surge in book challenges.
- 01
The American Library Association tracks book challenges and bans annually, with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye among the most frequently challenged titles.