Greg Abbott Education Texas

Greg Abbott Signed the Law That Made Texas No. 1 in Book Bans: Over 8,100 in One School Year, Up From About 540

PEN America counted nearly 12,000 school book bans nationwide in 2025-2026, the most ever — and more than 8,100 were in Texas, driven by SB 13, the library law Abbott signed in June 2025. Some districts used AI to pick which books to pull.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 06, 2026

Greg Abbott Signed the Law That Made Texas No. 1 in Book Bans: Over 8,100 in One School Year, Up From About 540 — Photo: Aaron E. Martinez / The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

In June 2025, Greg Abbott signed a law that took the power to choose books for Texas school libraries away from librarians. One school year later, Texas has banned more books than any state in the country — more than twice as many as Florida.

The numbers

On October 5, PEN America reported nearly 12,000 book bans in public schools across the country during the 2025–2026 school year. That's the most it has ever recorded in a single year.

Texas alone accounted for more than 8,100 of them. Florida, which had been the No. 1 book-banning state three years running, came in second with more than 3,200.

To see how fast that happened: in the 2023–24 school year, PEN America counted about 540 book bans in Texas schools, according to the Texas Tribune. Two school years later, it's more than 8,100. (PEN America notes that part of the jump reflects bans that had gone uncounted until public records requests turned them up.)

PEN America is clear about why. Texas took the lead "due to the impact of a censorial Texas law, SB13, which bans broad categories of books in schools."

The law Abbott signed

Senate Bill 13 passed the Texas Legislature in May 2025, and Abbott signed it into law in June.

The law moved the final say over school library books from trained librarians to elected school boards, or to advisory councils that parents can force into being with a petition signed by 50 of them, or 10% of the district's parents if that's fewer. It set up a process for boards to pull books based on complaints, and required approved books to fit "local community values" — language critics called vague. During the debate, state Rep. James Talarico put the problem simply, the Tribune reported: "If your answer to 'could 'Romeo and Juliet' be banned,' if it is anything other than 'of course not,' then that is a serious problem."

PEN America says that vagueness is exactly what drove the numbers up. "In Texas, a 2025 law, SB 13, caused many districts to ban books in droves for fear of not complying with the confusing legislation," its report says.

Districts let AI pick the books

Some Texas districts couldn't figure out how to follow the law, so they handed the job to software. PEN America found that "particularly in Texas, where state legislation was difficult to understand and apply, AI was used to identify books for removal." In several cases, the AI simply recommended banning books that had been banned somewhere else — "creating a snowball effect for frequently banned books while the expertise of librarians and the communities they serve are ignored."

That's what Abbott's law replaced: librarians who know the books and the kids, swapped for school boards afraid of breaking a confusing law, and in some places a computer program copying other districts' ban lists.

What got banned

The most banned book in the country last year was Sold by Patricia McCormick — a young adult novel about a teenage girl from Nepal who is sold into sexual slavery, built on McCormick's interviews with real survivors.

"To hear people, or book banners, say that their accounts are pornographic is so disrespectful to them," McCormick said in PEN America's announcement. "There are kids who need a book like that because they have some kind of sexual exploitation experience in their own life."

Stephen King was the most banned author for the second year in a row. PEN America found that more than 90% of the young adult books banned were fiction, and that popular Japanese comics — Attack on Titan, Inuyasha — were caught up in the sweep too. Those are the books that get kids reading in the first place.

And many Texans never hear about it. PEN America says thousands of bans only came to light because two grassroots groups, the Texas Freedom to Read Project and the Florida Freedom to Read Project, filed public records requests. "Books paid for by taxpayers are being removed from shelves and the local community may not even know about it," PEN America's Philomena Polefrone said.

The bottom line

Greg Abbott signed SB 13 in June 2025, taking control of school library books away from librarians. In the 2025–2026 school year, Texas schools banned more than 8,100 books — up from about 540 two years earlier, and more than any other state. PEN America says the law's confusing rules drove districts to ban books "in droves," some of them using AI to choose which ones to pull.