A newly released report from the Florida Department of Education shows about 600 books were removed, restricted or discontinued from public schools across the state during the 2025-26 school year.<\/p>\n
The removals were reported in just 10 of Florida\u2019s 67 school districts.<\/p>\n
Three are in Central Florida: Orange, Polk and Sumter counties. Sumter, which is largely rural outside The Villages retirement community, removed 22 books from high school libraries. Polk banned 32, while Orange had only one.<\/p>\n
Clay County, north of Central Florida, reported more than 260 removals.<\/p>\n
For most districts, the department says the books were challenged by parents or community members and then reviewed by school districts under state laws governing what materials students can access.<\/p>\n
In Sumter County, the district reviewed the books under state laws restricting materials considered sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate for students.<\/p>\n
The list includes works by Stephen King, Jennette McCurdy and Sarah J. Maas, along with popular titles including \u201cWicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West\u201d and \u201cThe Freedom Writers Diary.\u201d<\/p>\n
William Johnson, director of PEN America\u2019s Florida office, which advocates against book censorship, said the consequences of removing books can be different in rural communities.<\/p>\n
Students in larger metropolitan areas may have access to public libraries, bookstores and other places to find a book that is no longer available at school. Johnson says those alternatives can be harder to reach in rural areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe options are fewer and farther away in rural communities, so removing a book from a school library can have a greater practical effect on whether a young person can obtain it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said rural districts can also have fewer librarians and media specialists available to review challenged books, along with smaller library collections and fewer institutions where students can access books.<\/p>\n
He said that creates an \u201cundue burden\u201d for the people conducting the reviews, while also potentially limiting students\u2019 access to books.<\/p>\n
The process comes from changes to Florida law governing materials available in public schools. Under state law, HB 1467<\/a>, parents or guardians can challenge books or other materials, which school districts then review under state requirements.<\/p>\n Johnson said some challenges focused on individual passages, particularly those involving sexual content, rather than the book as a whole.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you do that, when you don’t understand literary merit, context, you are unfortunately removing books that have real, true literary and cultural value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Each county’s list, added all together, comes to 200 more entries than last year\u2019s total.<\/p>\n The big picture<\/p>\n