American Library Association

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has spearheaded a law that made his state the first in the U.S. to effectively ban book bans.

Requests for books to be removed from U.S. shelves soared to a record-high in 2022, with the majority of titles "targeted for censorship" related to LGBT issues and minorities, according to data released by the American Library Association on March 23.