Florida, once the nation’s leader in the movement to rid schools of books that some consider offensive, inappropriate or just too gay, is now trailing the state of Texas in book bans.
The Sunshine State this year ranked second to Texas in the record-high number of books removed from public schools over the last year, according to PEN America’s latest annual book ban report.
Over 3,200 books were removed from Florida schools alone, according to the report, while more than 8,000 were removed from Texas schools.
Stephana Ferrell, an Orange County parent of two and co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, sees book removal efforts in Florida — and intimidation tactics from state officials on this point — as politically motivated, and told Orlando Weekly that book removals are not actually top of mind for most of Florida’s public-school parents.
“We are in a moment where our schools are closing, there are programs getting cut or canceled, we’re running into transportation issues,” she said. “There’s a lot that public school parents are actually worried about right now.”
The so-called “Free State of Florida” has ranked No. 1 for book removals in the U.S. for the last three years in a row, while at the same time Florida’s literacy rates continue to decline. But a new law in Texas is expected to have shifted that this year.
Bigger in Texas
A Texas law (SB 13), passed by state lawmakers in 2025, has likely hastened book removals according to PEN America. It requires school libraries in Texas to get rid of books determined to be “indecent” or “profane.”
According to the San Antonio Current, this has reportedly included several works by William Shakespeare and the memoirs of former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, classics such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath have been moved to “restricted” sections of Texas school libraries, according to the Current, accessible only to AP Lit students.
PEN America notes in its report that the number of book removals recorded in Florida and Texas, compared to other states, could be attributed in part to the presence of advocacy groups, like the Florida Freedom to Read Project, that help file public records requests for this information.
“These advocates make it possible to go beyond publicly available data which has dwindled in a chilled political climate and with waning public attention,” PEN America stated in a press release. “These records requests allow this report to record thousands of bans that were otherwise invisible.”
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A broader look at book bans
Nearly 12,000 books were removed from U.S. schools during the 2025-2026 school year nationwide, according to PEN America’s report — a record high. In the 2024-25 school year, 6,870 books were removed from U.S. schools, and just over 10,000 were removed in 2023.
Book removals in recent years — advanced by right-wing “parental rights” advocates — have faced scrutiny over removers’ targeting of books highlighting LGBTQ+ and Black voices and books homing in on themes of race, discrimination, mental illness, sexual violence or abuse.
The most common title removed from U.S. schools last year, for instance, was the 2006 novel Sold by Patricia McCormick, according to PEN America. The young adult novel follows a 13-year-old teenager in Nepal who is sold into prostitution.
McCormick, a journalist and writer who did extensive research for the book, said in a statement released with the report that the removal of her book makes her feel “angry” on behalf of the women that she interviewed for the book — “young women who’ve been sold into sexual slavery, who told their stories so the world could know what was going on,” she said.
“To hear people, or book banners, say that their accounts are pornographic is so disrespectful to them,” said McCormick, adding, “It’s also really disrespectful to the students who seek out that book. There are kids who need a book like that because they have some kind of sexual exploitation experience in their own life, and there’s something about reading a story about someone who’s six degrees away from you — a girl in Nepal — that inspires a certain amount of empathy and understanding that you might not have for yourself.”
“To hear people, or book banners, say that their accounts are pornographic is so disrespectful to them.”
Author Patricia McCormick, speaking of the women she interviewed during research for her young adult novel.
Horror writer Stephen King, on the other hand, was the most commonly banned author in this year’s report, with 312 instances of one of his books being removed.
Intimidation in Florida
The high number of book removals in Florida, specifically, this year was attributed in part to a fight involving the removal of 55 titles deemed “pornographic” in Hillsborough County Public Schools.
In May 2025, Florida’s education commissioner Manny Diaz and attorney general James Uthmeier — who’s up for election this year — sent a threatening letter to Hillsborough County’s school district demanding they remove the 55 titles, accusing the district of violating state law.
Titles targeted by state education leaders — not parents — for removal included A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Sold by Patricia McCormick, A Court of Thorns and Roses by romantasy author Sarah J. Maas, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, according to a full list obtained through a public records request by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.
Hillsborough ultimately complied and several other school districts in Florida, including Orange County and Osceola County Public Schools, reportedly proactively did the same — at least with some of the same titles listed — for fear of being targeted.
“While I disagree with their determination that these books are pornographic as the law defines it … I think it would be perilous for this board to allow these books to remain on the shelves,” Orange County Public Schools legal counsel John Palmerini told school board members last summer, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
One of the earliest books sought for removal by book-banning activists — including outgoing school board member Alicia Farrant — in Orange County in 2021 was Gender Queer, an award-winning LGBTQ+ illustrated memoir by Maia Kobabe.
Since then, so-called parental rights activists in Florida and across the United States are now also going after manga, graphic novels and apparently presidential memoirs. Many of those actually filing or vocalizing objections to certain books in schools aren’t even parents of public school students, according to Ferrell.
Out of the 11,982 books removed from U.S. schools last school year, the vast majority (87 percent) were fiction. Twelve percent of books removed were nonfiction, and less than 2 percent were poetic workers or “other.” More than 7,000 of the books removed were unique titles.
Titles banned for the first time in at least some part of the U.S. this year, according to public records obtained by PEN America and allied groups, include the manga Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida, YA novel Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini, and the 1847 gothic novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
Hostile leadership
More book removals, however, could still be coming to Florida’s school districts, at the urging of Florida’s new education commissioner, Henry Mack (appointed after Diaz left).
Last month, Mack sent a memo to Florida school superintendents and charter school leaders, ordering them to continually audit and review titles in their schools to ensure books are “age- and developmentally appropriate” in accordance with state rules.
Failure to do so could result in “corrective measures,” according to the Sept. 23 memo. “Protecting the innocence of Florida’s children is among the most serious responsibilities entrusted to public school leadership,” Mack wrote.
Ferrell sees the timing of the letter as “interesting,” in part because the general election is just a few weeks away. “Maybe [there’s] a need to ensure that an unenthusiastic base still turns up to vote, regardless of whether they actually want to vote for and believe in the candidates that are on the ticket,” she guessed.
“I honestly don’t believe that Commissioner Mack wants to make this a priority either,” she added. “But I do believe it’s politically motivated.”
Incoming Orange County school board chair Angie Gallo told VoxPopuli this week that the Orange County school district, for its part, is planning business as usual with their book review policy.
“When I spoke to my general counsel about this latest memo needing a policy change, I was told that our policy is good,” Gallo told VoxPopuli. “The bottom line is, I think we are adhering to the law as written.”
