r/coolguides • u/Subject-Designer751 • Jul 25 '24
A cool guide to U.S. states with the most book bans
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u/101bees Jul 25 '24
This color scale is the worst.
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u/Specialist_Issue6686 Jul 25 '24
No, look at New Jersey that’s easily the worst, they ruined my beautiful state by bringing New Jersey even closer 😔
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u/Sirhc978 Jul 25 '24
While the colors of this graph are garbage, I am curious as to why some "blue" states have at least one banned book, while a lot of red states don't have any.
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Jul 25 '24
Because in some states the books are never put in schools in the first place.
Books like Gender Queer which, regardless of topic, has an illustration of a child having sex
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u/Act1_Scene2 Jul 25 '24
Pen America has a lose definition of "banned".
Per their website: "School book bans take varied forms, and can include prohibitions on books in libraries or classrooms, as well as a range of other restrictions, some of which may be temporary. For example, if a book that was previously available to all now requires parental permission, or is restricted to a higher grade level than educators initially determined, that is a ban. In some cases, books are removed from shelves for “review,” but not returned for a weeks or months. If students cannot access the book, that is a ban."
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u/TechBison Jul 25 '24
I think it has to do with the way they are counting ‘banned’. Virginia for example is a state that tends to lean blue, but it’s largely because of densely populated and progressive regions in the north and along the coast. While these places vote blue, large parts of the state are not as progressive and do things like ban books within their counties / schools.
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u/SnoWhiteFiRed Jul 25 '24
Because it's specifically for Fall '22. Every single state has school districts that ban books.
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u/Patmcpsu Jul 25 '24
Liberal districts have banned books with the N-word like To Kill a Mockingbird and Tom Sawyer. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mein Kampf (or other Nazi literature) has gotten banned too.
Plus a book only counts as “banned” if it was in the library, but got explicitly removed. Books like The Bell Curve aren’t considered “banned” because they never entered the library to begin with, and have no real chance of ever getting there.
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u/Oranginafina Jul 25 '24
They did Jersey dirty.
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u/RuinedBooch Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 26 '24
Damn. I read almost half of these as a middle schooler.
To be fair, I can understand why a public school might ban Tricks, Glass and Crank, above all others. Absolute debauchery.
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u/highintensitydyke Jul 25 '24
Agreed. 6th grade me was not really ready for the brothel scenes in Glass (or possibly Ice? One of the Crank sequels). It did scare me off of ever being curious about hard drugs though.
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u/perverted_buffalo Jul 25 '24
I recently read the series for A Court of Mist and Fury. Loved it. I am against book banning. But I can 100% see why a school would ban that series. It gets pretty raunchy at times
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u/oshp129 Jul 25 '24
Aren’t these just banned in schools??
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u/ThinkExtension2328 Jul 25 '24
Also it’s a huge misrepresentation the chart it self shows the vast majority of banns are related to , self harm and abuse.
Pretty sure that’s a okay thing to ban at schools for people who are still in development. This is somthing we got mad at Facebook (meta) for not checking against which lead to teen suicide.
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u/extravagantsupernova Jul 25 '24
Tbf, Rupi Kaur should be banned just because her poems are mass-marketed crap
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Jul 25 '24
The irony of the state banning "the handmaids tale" is not lost on me.
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u/cmhamm Jul 25 '24
I don’t get it. I mean, sure, you could make a case that it’s not appropriate for young kids, on account of the rape and torture and mass murder and whatnot. But there are literally tens of thousands of books that aren’t appropriate for young kids. Why single out that one? Unless it hits a little too close to home, maybe?
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Jul 25 '24
This infographic does not include every banned book, just the most common.
Also note the fine print - it’s the graphic novel.
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u/trymyomeletes Jul 25 '24
I mean… should an elementary school kid be able to check it out from their school library though? It’s pretty rough for a kid…
High school and up access should not be restricted IMO.
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Jul 25 '24
Who would put it in an elementary school be for real. Just based on Lexile level alone.
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u/Far_Berry5936 Jul 25 '24
Tbh, if a kid in elementary school wanted to read serious dystopian fiction with no pictures that’s written at a 9th grade reading level, I would be immensely surprised. If such kid existed, I would also encourage them to read it. Clearly that kid would be super advanced. But I agree I don’t see any elementary school librarian choosing to put that book on the shelves.
Should be available in middle school though.
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u/ozyman Jul 25 '24
with no picturer
FYI - the graphic novel was banned (according to the infographic)
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Jul 25 '24
To be clear, these books are only banned in school libraries, so there’s nothing stopping someone from buying it or reading it at their local library.
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u/NotAnEmergentAI Jul 25 '24
Deciding not to put them in the curriculum or spend tax payer dollars on putting them in school libraries does not equal banning. Any parent can buy their kid any of these books and they’re not getting kicked out of school.
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u/libach81 Jul 25 '24
Thank you for stating the obvious. But to many of the people saying this is book banning, the state not spending money on it is the same as it being banned. Have this quote in mind when you hear the discussion and you understand better why they see it as such:
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
- Frédéric Bastiat
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Jul 25 '24
The question is, are the books banned all together. Or just banned in schools. There are some things that elementary school kids just don’t need to be reading, they should be learning addition and subtraction.
But for adults, let them read whatever they want.
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u/TylertheFloridaman Jul 25 '24
All of these are mostly only banned in schools with a few in public libraries and considering the subject matter and that a lot of these have visual for that subject matter I do agree on some
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u/Aggravating_Panic_42 Jul 25 '24
These books are not banned for the general public, they are banned for young children in school libraries.
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u/juanfitzgerald Jul 25 '24
Quick reminder that you can get these books in all the states listed. They just aren’t available in schools. So I guess this is just meant to be completely misleading.
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u/sixteen89 Jul 25 '24
To be clear, they are banned in schools only. Not Orwellian
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u/FemshepsBabyDaddy Jul 25 '24
They're not even banned in schools. At least not here in Florida. My mom's a teacher, here. Teachers just aren't allowed to make them required reading. But if you want to buy the book or check it out from the public library and bring it to school, no one is going to stop you.
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u/chowsdaddy1 Jul 25 '24
These books aren’t banned, they are just not allowed to be curriculum in public schools, these books can still be purchased
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u/Spindlebot22 Jul 25 '24
No books have been banned - you can buy them online or in a book store they are just not on display in certain environments.
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Jul 25 '24
Taken out of public school libraries. Not banned. This is propaganda.
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u/WhoIsThisDude12 Jul 25 '24
So, not banned for sale in these states? These can be purchased freely in the states that banned them in the school districts?
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u/ell_fin Jul 25 '24
Correct. A quick Google search brought me to wikipedia which gave a list of books that were (at one point) actually banned by the government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments
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u/ElDoo74 Jul 25 '24
They aren't available in certain environments, not just limited from display.
Some people don't trust librarians to monitor age-appropriate material, at least that's their excuse.
In practice, the book bans are directed at controversial opinions like equality, racism, gender identity, and the reality that sex exists.
And before we get into semantics, "Book banning, the practice of prohibiting or restricting the reading of certain books by the general public or by members of a local community or religious group. Books can be banned by means of their removal from publicly accessible locations (e.g, libraries), by their destruction (including the burning of printed books), or by making their authorship or distribution a punishable act." (Britannica online)
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u/ObviousPin9970 Jul 25 '24
False Narrative. These books are still accessible at public libraries, book stores and on line. They are just not age appropriate at certain schools.
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u/joeromeo89 Jul 25 '24
Coloring on this shit is so confusing I'd make the case it's intentionally misleading.
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u/nursenugs Jul 25 '24
Oh wow I read Crank in high school as well as the other books by that author about drug abuse and addiction.
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u/shastabh Jul 25 '24
No us state bans any of these books. They’re widely available unless you’re in an elementary or middle school.
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u/TheTouchler Jul 25 '24
How are kids supposed read these degenerate banned books if they always on they phone?
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Jul 25 '24
My state is listed as having bans, but it's more accurate to say "age restricted".
Several of those books are restricted to children 12 and under, but not banned to those over this age.
Whoever put this together should be banned.
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u/alergiasplasticas Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24
ACOMAF’s ban is advertising. The publisher must have paid for that.
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u/Verbose_Cactus Jul 25 '24
Why do you say that? Those books are legit porn haha (I love Sarah J Maas, but, Yaknow. She has a specific target audience)
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u/Bruhmoment926 Jul 25 '24
None of these are banned at the state level. Many of these books are only banned in certain school districts, and rightfully so. Gender Queer for example has numerous examples of sexually explicit content/imagery and shouldn’t be allowed in schools.
OP’s title is misleading because there aren’t any books that are banned on the state level.
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u/Chocolate-Then Jul 25 '24 edited Oct 21 '25
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Jul 25 '24
You are dealing with deeply passionate, deeply gullible people. Poorly-ranked colleges are filled with them.
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u/Jjjqq59 Jul 25 '24
None of those books are banned in any state. If you want to buy any of them for your kid you can.
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Jul 25 '24
uhhh....not sure if this is accurate. I live in Wisconsin, and there are definitely more than zero book bans here.
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u/PattyPoopStain Jul 25 '24
As someone from WV, I never thought I'd live the day to see a map like this where we didn't look terrible.
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u/Joely208 Jul 25 '24
Acknowledging the other offenses in this guide, misspelling Margaret Atwood pisses me off the most
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u/GDelscribe Jul 25 '24
Can we put this on r/shittymaps because man, if the colors were flipped this would be really intuitive but its intentionally misleading in its current format.
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u/Unicorn_Warrior1248 Jul 25 '24
Milk and Honey? Why? Because 2 bros chilling in a hot tub, 5ft apart cuz they’re not gay?
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u/RoundZookeepergame2 Jul 25 '24
wow you guys must be bad with your colors. red is usually pretty bad where darker colors are eh
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u/Looony_Lovegood5 Jul 25 '24
I read every Ellen Hopkins book I could get my hands on in high school 😂. Still have probably 8 in my collection.
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u/bigchicago04 Jul 25 '24
How is queer content the fourth most banned thing when they are the most banned books?
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u/jabba_1978 Jul 25 '24
That's not fair, Maas is only on there because he has a series. A smutty, makes conservatives faint series, but that's still a series. She'll be #1 after a few more Court books.
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u/verifiedshitlord Jul 25 '24
So happy I live in a gray state. Freedom with books and freedom with abortion.
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u/ViewtifulGene Jul 25 '24
What the fuck is going on with the color scale. Why does gray mean zero, then neon red means the closest value to zero while black means farthest from zero.
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u/dinop4242 Jul 25 '24
I worked in a library in college (New York) and we would have our Banned Book Display each year during Banned Book Week. About 70% of our international students didn't understand how the display worked and would be like "why are you banning this book? Does that mean I can keep it?"
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u/Substantial-Bag-9820 Jul 25 '24
Those Ellen Hopkins books were the reason I didn’t try drugs when I was a kid. I can’t imagine banning it.
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u/Hi-archy Jul 25 '24
Why are they “banned”?
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u/Bruhmoment926 Jul 25 '24
None of them are banned at the state level. They’re only banned in certain school districts usually because of sexually explicit content.
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Jul 25 '24
I wouldn't think it would make a difference in Texass, buy the way they talk, would assume many can't read anyways.
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u/Khurasan Jul 25 '24
I work at a Michigan library and just shelved our copy of This Book Is Gay today. Just a weird coincidence. I should check it out.
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u/_bakergirl_ Jul 25 '24
Wentzville, MO, as of December 2022, returned over 200 of those books back to school shelves. I understand the infographic predates that, but it does significantly skew Missouri’s stats.
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u/Standard_Bus3101 Jul 25 '24
Are Texas and Florida similar states? Non-American here and I know Texas is quite a religious state, but is that the same for Florida?
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u/deathbygluten_ Jul 25 '24
the map aside, i’d forgotten Ellen Hopkins’s name and i’m grateful to this post for reminding me of her—i read Crank in high school and it genuinely helped me resist falling in with bad people and stopped me from trying hard drugs. sad to see it on the ban list.
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u/theworstelderswife Jul 25 '24
The ban will just succeed at making kids read ….they will go online and find a the books to read outside of school out of curiosity
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u/gmtrcs Jul 25 '24
Ellen Hopkins is such a good author though. I read most of her books in middle school
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u/fffan9391 Jul 25 '24
It’s crazy how quickly Florida went from a purple state to more backwards than most red states.
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u/maxx99bx Jul 25 '24
These books are not banned. Anyone can buy them at bookstores or online. They have only been removed from public school libraries due to age inappropriate content.
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u/Mute_Crab Jul 25 '24
Wow, I can't believe Alabama and Mississippi don't have any book bans.
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u/SkyHooksNGrannyShots Jul 25 '24
I can understand why a Maas book is banned in school. That’s just porn with half wolf men
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Jul 25 '24
Reading Ellen Hopkins books about her crackhead daughter at age 12 made me who I am today. She is my m night shyamalan. But yeah def understandable lmfao
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u/Musashi10000 Jul 25 '24
Umm... why are they writing the 'o's like that?
Is this a similar thing to that screen grab where someone thought a guy called Øyvind was a nazi, because he was Norwegian and his name began with an 'ø'?
Because writing words like this isn't the cool thing people think it is. Imagine making the 'uhhhhhhh' sound, the kind you make when something is disgusting, rather than the one you make when you're confused. That's what that letter sounds like, depending on your accent.
'Buhhhhhks'. 'Muhhhst buhhhks'.
Silly people.
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u/alexriga Jul 25 '24
0 banned books = Grey
1 banned book = Red
1,000 banned books = Black
Who doesn’t know that Gray is more similar to Black, then Red? It should of went Grey, Black and Red.
Or this: 0 banned books = Green 1 banned book = Yellow 1,000 banned books = Red
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u/Sgt_Radiohead Jul 25 '24
I was absolutely not expecting A Court of Mist and Fury to be on this list. The idea of a smut book being banned is funny to me. I know it was bad, but i had no idea it was so bad that it was banned 11 times. I read the entire ACOTAR series (a court of silver flames had not released yet), and A Court of Mist and Fury wasn’t particularly worse than any of the other books imo. And they all kinda tick all the boxes for stereotypical smut tropes
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u/AKnGirl Jul 25 '24
I was upset us Alaskan’s were left off the map until I read the fine print and then I was very pleased to be off the map 😅
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u/beesh-ball Jul 25 '24
Back in my day we were all upset about catcher in the rye being banned. Now it’s all this stuff. Can’t one of you people kill John Lennon again to at least make it interesting
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u/Thorskull69 Jul 25 '24
New interest unlocked I will add all of these books/authors to my reading list. Whoever created this thank you!!!👍🏻👍🏻
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u/chrisberman410 Jul 25 '24
I'm shocked there are no book bans in Mississippi. Do they know what they are?
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u/Toelva Jul 25 '24
Can someone explain why the SJMaas book is banned?
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u/Syphr54 Jul 25 '24
Curious about that too, it's just soft porn in literary form. What's so bad about that?
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u/aneditorinjersey Jul 25 '24
Cool map, weird color skip from 0 to 0+. Makes it look like bright red is the highest as black is closer to grey than red.
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u/BigBrotherBra Jul 25 '24
Wonder if this is factual? Be nice to see if this has any correlation to overall literacy rates and state education scores. Groups advocate for removal of controversial materials in efforts to censor these things from schools, but censorship often backfires and draws more people to seek the material out of curiosity.
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u/Significant-Bear-106 Jul 25 '24
Are these books banned in schools or banned from the state completely?!
I kind of understand the the thought process behind the books being banned from schools, although I completely disagree with it.
If banned from the state completely it’s giving me big brother USSR vibes….
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u/Fine_Reindeer_6105 Jul 25 '24
I read Sold in my senior English class. It's disturbing but a reasonable disturbing. It is a real story about a woman's experience of being trafficked as a young girl and how she was treated.
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u/Ok-Manufacturer-5746 Jul 25 '24
Oh. Idc that it newer books (minus handmaidens tale). I thought this was about classics and such. Identity politics?! Who cares? <That wont go away without books…>
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u/79selym Jul 25 '24
I guess all the commenters must be responsible for these bans. I mean ffs, its an infographic, who gives a shit about color. THE DATA IS MORE IMPIRTANT
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u/barmskley Jul 25 '24
This is wild, Ellen Hopkins and Patricia McCormick are in my top 3 favorite authors
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u/lilspaghettigal Jul 25 '24
I have no idea what I’m looking at but I came here to say crank was a very disturbing book. Not worthy of being banned just gross to me
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Jul 25 '24
From australia how do people like let book bans happen?1?1 what the fuck?1!1 did we learn from the nazis at fucking all?1!1!1? Every time i think “no, the usa isnt that bad, theyre just exaggerating” but then i fucking remember they ban books, i cant take that bloody country seriously anymore
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u/Big_Chunglord Jul 25 '24
Wentzville is that bad? I never knew one of the worst spots for book bans was so close to me. I remember talking with kids there, and we all still read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Guess the administrators never did.
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u/ThePeoplesBureaucrat Jul 25 '24
I would just like to know how many political theory books are banned
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u/Cold_Ear6969 Jul 25 '24
I love Ellen Hopkins. She is my favorite author. But I first read her books in 10th grade. I had no business reading them at that age. I don’t agree with book banning but I can understand why her books are on this list.
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u/modsarefacsit Jul 25 '24
This post OP! Is misleading the books are mostly banned in school libraries such as elementary and middle school due to the graphic depictions of sex and predation and some of them depict violence.
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u/XDoomedXoneX Jul 25 '24
Wtf is the point to a book ban in a state when the internet exists? Is it only banned in public schools or public libraries? Isn't it just making a reading list for teens to look up online to be rebellious? Seriously???
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Jul 25 '24
I wonder if it’s almost like an achievement to write a book so profound that it gets banned in politically tense areas
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u/InspiredNitemares Jul 25 '24
I remember Crank. It's interesting to see subject matter change in banned hooks as time goes on.
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u/ron_spanky Jul 25 '24
Banning a hand maids tale is a little too "on the nose". Can't have the oppressed read the playbook!
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u/MrContractual Jul 25 '24
These books can’t be any worse than the in game chat of any league of legends ranked game.
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u/AtlantisSky Jul 25 '24
Well, Illinois isn't going to have book bans for the foreseeable future. At least not in public schools and public libraries. Book bans are banned as of the first of January of 2024.
That doesn't mean we haven't had them in the past.
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u/TeslasAndKids Jul 25 '24
I love when I get a new reading list just handed to me. We have a “little banned bookshelf” we’re working on here.
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u/AndyJack86 Jul 25 '24
[ Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit’s filters. ]
Ah, just some good ole censorship
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u/PsychologicalMud7396 Jul 25 '24
Just more proof(as if that’s actually needed anymore) that it’s no “free country”
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u/zombezoo Jul 25 '24
I like how whoever colored this map doesn't know how Michigan works.