Hit 100 flagged books on my library tracker and it got weird

I keep a spreadsheet of every book I check out that has been banned somewhere in the US or abroad. Last month I hit the 100 mark and honestly it took me by surprise. I started it as a joke two summers ago after someone at work said I only read 'safe' stuff. Turns out I had already read 60+ without knowing. The 100th was a graphic novel from Missouri that got pulled for a single panel. Why does that number matter? Because it made me realize how many of these titles are just everyday stories about normal people, not anything wild. Has anyone else kept a count or found that the scariest bans are the quiet ones?

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lily9716d ago

Honestly, the quiet ones are the ones that scare me the most. I started tracking banned books in my state specifically to see what the local school boards were targeting, and it was all stuff like Judy Blume and a book about a kid with two moms. Once you hit that 100 mark, you start noticing patterns, like how they pull books with one single scene or even just a character who asks questions. Practical advice, keep your record going but also screenshot the library listings before they get changed, because titles disappear fast. Also, check the challenged list from the American Library Association every January, that's the fastest way to see which books are getting heat in quiet towns before they make the news. That spreadsheet turns into a weird kind of map, and you start seeing which states really want to control what everyone else reads.