Trust & Verify: Florida is one of the top 5 states for banned books

The term ‘book ban’ has grown in popularity over the past year. The term refers to the books that groups want, or have pulled from public school libraries due to the content within them.

According to one viral image, Florida is helping to lead the way in banning books, and it is true.

The image shows the five states with the most books banned in public schools. Texas is in the number one spot with 713 books banned or under investigation, followed by Pennsylvania at 456.

With 204 books banned or under investigation, Florida took third place.

The numbers are coming from PEN America, an advocacy group for free expression, literature and human rights.

They say they counted more than 1,500 instances of book bans in public schools across the country in the past nine months.

In Florida, Brevard, Clay, Flagler, Indian River, Orange, Pinellas and Polk counties banned the 204 books.

PEN America says book titles that deal with LGBTQ topics, race, ethnicity and religion are the targets of the bans.  Books like John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men,’ George Johnson’s ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue,’ Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ and Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple.’

In March, Governor Ron DeSantis said some Florida public schools made sexually explicit books available to kids. He signed off on a new law requiring all elementary schools to provide a searchable list of every book available in their libraries or used in instruction.

School boards must allow public comment before approving new instructional books and any objections must be reported to the state.

That new law also sets a 12-year term limit for school board members in Florida.

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