The 23,000 “banned” books claim is false.

According to the American Library Association, in 2024, 2,452 unique titles (not 23,000) were challenged for being carried in public schools. In 2023, 4,240 titles were challenged. These were requests to not carry a title in a school – the ALA does not specify how many of these challenges were successful. (https://ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data and https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/10/07/by-the-numbers-banned-books-week-2025/)

The 23,000 figure came from a PEN America report that counts individual titles, multiple times. If 100 schools choose to not carry one title, that is counted as “100” bans – not 100 distinct books were banned. But in their broad definition, a “ban” does not mean the book is unavailable.

PEN counts a book that is moved to less visibility, or permitted only to higher grades, or requires permission of a staff member as a “ban” even though the book is still available and is not banned.

“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.”

See https://pen.org/report/the-normalization-of-book-banning/

The 23,000 figure comes from a cumulative count over several years – and is not a count of banned book titles.

None of the books alleged to be banned in the U.S. are actually banned – they are readily available from book sellers too.