These organizations say they aim to give parents more of a say about what children read in the classroom or preserve “principles' of 'liberty' or 'freedom,' according to their websites. The conservative effort is coming from some legislators and conservative political groups like Moms For Liberty and No Left Turn in Education, PEN America found. Where are book-banning efforts coming from? 'We're in danger of removing from libraries, all kinds of materials, some of which are seen as classic forms of literature and some of which are now in danger of not becoming classic works of literature for the future because they're being censored in this way,' Friedman said. There were at least 2,532 book challenges from July 2021 to June 2022, affecting 1,648 book titles, according to a report by the free expression protection group PEN America.

'We all have different issues that we think shouldn't be in books - historic representations of racism, for example, something like Mark Twain is just as likely to as is 'Gender Queer,'' a coming-of-age memoir about the author's LGBTQ identity. 'If you get five people and they walk through a library and they are allowed to remove anything they think might get someone in trouble for it being there - Well, they're going to start pulling all kinds of stuff, a conservative person and progressive person,' Jonathan Friedman, the director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, told ABC News. Only a handful of efforts have also come from liberal sources, mainly targeting books with racist or offensive language. While activists across the political spectrum have sought to restrict or protest some forms of literature, the vast majority of book challenges are from conservative-leaning groups, researchers say.

The country saw a growing effort to ban books in schools and libraries nationwide in 2022, and researchers expect to see more efforts to challenge books in 2023 as some Republican-backed laws across the country aim to restrict LGBTQ and racial content in school books.

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