Ohio ranks third nationally in school book bans

By the numbers: PEN America documented nearly 12,000 instances of school book bans nationwide during the last school year, the most since it began tracking removals in 2021.

• PEN America monitors instances in which a title is permanently or temporarily removed from school libraries and classrooms in the U.S.

• The total includes 117 instances in Ohio. Texas led with over 8,100 instances, followed by Florida with more than 3,200.

Between the pages: The most-banned books nationally included Patricia McCormick's "Sold," about a Nepalese girl sold into sexual slavery, and Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," about a teenager coping with sexual assault.

• Stephen King was the nation's most-banned author, with 312 instances involving his books.

State of play: Ohio lawmakers have weighed restrictions on reading materials.

• House Bill 8, the "Parents' Bill of Rights," established new requirements last year involving parental notification and school policies on sexuality-related instruction.

Zoom in: Bellbrook-Sugarcreek schools near Dayton restricted access to 130 books in 2025, removing 36 titles from school libraries and relocating others from younger students' libraries to the high school.

• The district cited the new law, although it doesn't explicitly require library book removals.

Flashback: Book banning isn't new to Northeast Ohio, either.

• In 1972, Strongsville school officials removed Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" from the high school library.
• The dispute reached a federal appeals court, which ruled in 1976 that the school board could not remove library books simply because it objected to their content.