By Junko Sakoi, Tucson Unified School District, Multicultural Curriculum Integration Coordinator
Censorship remains a significant issue affecting schools across the United States, with ongoing debates over educational content, children’s rights and academic freedom. In 2024, the American Library Association (ALA) documented 821 attempts to censor library materials and services, involving 2,452 titles. While this represents a decrease from 2023’s record of 1,247 challenges and 4,240 titles, the numbers remain significantly elevated compared to pre-2020 levels, which averaged 270 titles challenged annually between 2001 and 2020.
The ALA attributes the 2024 decline to factors such as underreporting, often linked to concerns about retaliation and controversy. In addition, evolving state legislation has influenced the availability of books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters, characters of color and themes related to race and racism.
Reflecting on the data, the notion of “underreported data” caught my attention, leading me to consider that the actual number of challenges may be higher than reported, especially in today’s complex educational climate.
In my professional development work with educators, we often explore ways of engaging children in reading literature to foster inclusivity, empathy and critical literacy. While literature is widely valued as an educational resource, I have also heard voices of uncertainty about how curriculum choices might be perceived. These moments of hesitation are not uncommon and underscore the broader need for shared guidance and reassurance in today’s teaching landscape.
With this in mind, I emphasize that stories reflect multiple experiences and perspectives of children, their families and their communities, and they are essential for supporting students understanding of their own identities, cultures, histories and the interconnected world they are part of. I share examples of how literature can support classroom engagements with themes such as identity, community and journeys. I also highlight that the books used in our sessions are carefully selected through a thoughtful review process, with attention to quality and relevance, aligned with the existing curriculum framework.
At the same time, I am aware that certain terms related to inclusive practices and cultural representation are sometimes met with hesitation. Even though our school community is home to students and families who speak more than forty languages, I have become more thoughtful in how I share ideas related to these values. This shift reflects the evolving context we are working in today.
These reflections remind me of earlier moments when concerns about educational materials surfaced more visibly, including policy shifts that affected how educators approached topics such as identity and culture. In light of this, a colleague and I have facilitated professional learning sessions centered on intellectual freedom and the educational value of children’s books. We read I have the Right to be a Child (Serres, Fronty, & Mixter, 2012) to discuss children’s rights, including their right to access information, attend school and read books. We also explored the reasons why certain books are challenged, such as And Tango Makes Three (Richardson, Parnell, & Cole, 2005), The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq (Winter, 2005), and Refugee (Gratz, 2017). After the session, several educators requested continued dialogue around intellectual freedom and censorship, as they felt empowered and supported in their work.
I believe it is vital to engage in dialogue about how literature can encourage reflection, foster connections and support deeper understanding. Also, nurturing spaces where educators feel empowered to make thoughtful instructional choices is essential, ensuring that all students have access to a wide range of perspectives and the opportunity to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world around them.
The next blog post will feature one librarian’s reflections on working with young children in her library through an intellectual freedom project. Her work highlights how early engagement with questions of choice, access and voice in literature can be both empowering and transformative. I invite you to continue the conversation by reading her post next week.
References
American Library Association. (2025). Book ban data. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data.
Gratz, A. (2017). Refugee. Scholastic Press.
Richardson, J., Parnell, P., & Cole, H. (2005). And Tango makes three. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Serres, A., Fronty, A., & Mixter, H. (2012). I have the right to be a child. Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press.
Winter, J. (2005). The librarian of Basra: A true story from Iraq. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
WOW Currents is a space to talk about forward-thinking trends in global children’s and adolescent literature and how we use that literature with students. “Currents” is a play on words for trends and timeliness and the way we talk about social media. We encourage you to participate by leaving comments and sharing this post with your peers. To view our complete offerings of WOW Currents, please visit its archival stream.
- Themes: Book bans, Junko Sakoi
- Descriptors: Debates & Trends, WOW Currents