State of America’s Libraries Report reveals 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, marking the second-highest total on record
CHICAGO, 20 April, 2025 : The 2006 book ‘SOLD’ by Patricia McCormick, telling the story of a girl from Nepal named Lakshmi, who is sold into sexual slavery in India, is the first book on the Most Challenged Books list by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. The novel is written in a series of short, vignette-style chapters, from the point of view of the main character. The 2014 movie Sold by Oscar winning Director Jeffrey D. Brown is based on this novel.
Good Reads summery of SOLD
“Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.
He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.
An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.
Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words—”Simply to endure is to triumph”—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?”
Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.
Trailer of the movie SOLD (2014)
ALA’s Top 11 Most Challenged Books
The American Library Association (ALA) has released its highly anticipated Top 11 Most Challenged Books List of 2025 as part of the 2026 State of America’s Libraries Report, offering a window into the ongoing challenges libraries continue to face head-on.
As the nation’s libraries united to celebrate the National Library Week and communities everywhere recognize the valuable contribution of America’s libraries and the people who power them, library workers around the country continue to grapple with censorship challenges and threats to their livelihood, says the ALA.
ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second highest ever documented by ALA. The highest ever documented was 4,240 in 2023.
Of the unique titles challenged in 2025, 1,671 (40%) represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
“Libraries exist to make space for every story and every lived experience,” said ALA President Sam Helmick. “As we celebrate National Library Week, we reaffirm that libraries are places for knowledge, for access, and for all.”
ALA documented 713 attempts to censor library materials and services, 487 of which targeted books. The Top 11 Most Targeted Titles in 2025 were:
1. Sold by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout
In 2025, 92 percent of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials and decision makers, up from 72 percent in 2024. Less than 3 percent of challenges originated from individual parents.
“In 2025, book bans were not sparked by concerned parents, and they were not the result of local grassroots efforts,” said Sarah Lamdan, Executive Director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “They were part of a well-funded, politically-driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities.”
ALA defines a “ban” as the removal of materials from a library based on the objections of a person or group. A “challenge” is an attempt to have a library resource removed, or access to it restricted, based on the objections of a person or group. In 2025, OIF documented 5,668 books banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged). An additional 920 books were censored through access restrictions such as relocation or requiring parental permission. This is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship from 1990–2025.
To help inform library workers and the public about censorship issues, OIF recently launched several new and updated resources, including the Censorship Search Portal, which allows people to search OIF’s expansive database to learn about efforts to ban books; the Censorship Cases Bot on Bluesky, which provides real-time updates on the latest book censorship litigation in partnership with the Free Law Project; and the eleventh edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual, which offers up-to-date insights on protecting intellectual freedom, fighting censorship, safeguarding privacy, and more.
American Library Association
The American Library Association is the largest non-partisan, nonprofit organisation dedicated to America’s libraries. The ALA mission is to empower and advocate for all libraries and library workers to ensure equitable access to information for all. For 150 years, ALA has provided resources for information professionals to transform their communities through essential programs and services.
For more information, visit www.ala.org.
