Why are book bans and librarian threats increasing in US schools?

According to the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom's State of America's Libraries Report, book bans and threats against librarians have increased in the United States.

In 2021, there were nearly twice as many book difficulties reported across the country as there were in 2020.

In the previous year, the group discovered 729 challenges against over 1,600 works in public schools and libraries. It's the most the ALA has seen in 20 years of evaluations.

According to the American Library Association, a "challenge" to a book is a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that publications be removed because of content or appropriateness."

Both of the most difficult books dealt with LGBTQ+ issues. Republican lawmakers targeted Maia Kobabe's graphic work "Gender Queer: A Memoir" and Jonathan Evison's "Lawn Boy."

As part of his successful candidacy for governor of Virginia last year, Glenn Youngkin backed a local school board's decision to prohibit the two novels. Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina also supported a school board's decision to prohibit the term "gender queer."

Parents stormed into Spotsylvania County Town Hall in Virginia in November of last year, attempting to remove any "objectionable" books from classrooms.

Parents requested that books containing themes of racism and sexuality be removed from high school libraries.

Matt Krause, a Texas state legislator, ordered that 850 books be removed from the school curriculum in the same month.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed the two novels in March when he signed a bill requiring elementary schools to furnish a searchable list of all books in their libraries for parents to review.

Both Kobabe and Evison's books weren't necessarily aimed at teens and younger readers, but they gained traction after receiving an Alex Award from the American Library Association, which recognizes a book "written for adults with special appeal to young people, aged 12 through 18."

“I think a big part of our books getting so much attention is that they're award winners and ended up being purchased by libraries all over the country,” Kobabe said.

Almost all of the books on the most-targeted list from the previous year deal with LGBT or race issues.

Angie Thomas' best-selling "The Hate U Give," written in response to the police shooting of Oscar Grant; George Johnson's "All Boys Aren't Blue," a collection of essays about growing up as a queer black man; Juno Dawson's "This Book Is Gay," a nonfiction look at LGBT issues; and Susan Kuklin's "Beyond Magenta," a collection of interviews with transgender and gender-neutral teens.

“A year ago, we might have been receiving one, maybe two reports a day about a book being challenged at a library. And usually those calls would be for guidance on how to handle a challenge or for materials that support the value of the work being challenged,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA told the AP.

“Now, we're getting three, four, five reports a day, many in need of support and some in need of a great deal of support. We’re on the phone constantly,” she said.