A new PEN America analysis of books banned during the 2023-2024 school year shows which stories were disproportionately removed from shelves — and debunks “exaggerated” claims about books that feature sexual experiences.

One of those sources, PEN America, is a nonprofit that has been tracking school book bans since 2021. The organization wasn’t aware of an official Project 2025 banned book list.

The first known banned book was Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan," a book published in 1637 that was banned by the Puritan government for its criticisms of their customs, according to a research guide from Harvard Graduate School of Education's Gutman Library.

Seven arts, culture, and free expression organizations have issued a statement asserting that recent Trump Administration executive actions are aimed at turning federally funded programs into “the mouthpiece of the presidential administration.

When I was young, my favorite author was Milan Kundera, who wrote the popular novel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” and also the novel, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.” The second novel is about Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Sarah Jessica Parker will be this year’s recipient of PEN America’s “Literary Service Award.” The “Sex and the City” star, a longtime advocate for reading and literacy, will be honored