It has been 76 years since "1984," George Orwell's warning about government control, censorship and the corruption of language, was first published.
The organizations behind Banned Books Week based this year's theme, "Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights," on Orwell's sobering story to show we may be closer in real life to his dystopia than ever before.
Over 3,700 unique books were banned during the 2024-2025 school year, more than double the number of titles advocacy group PEN America tracked in the 2021-2022 school year when it began counting. The nonprofit, dedicated to free expression, found 6,870 total instances of book banning in the '24-'25 year. Their "Banned in the USA" report warns against a "normalization" of book bans, calling them "rampant and common."
"If we're not careful, it might not simply be your book being put on a list that makes it so a librarian can't order it," says Clint Smith, author of "How the Word Is Passed." Instead, "it might be you arrested for writing the book in the first place."
"You have to recognize that where we are now is worse than where we've been, but where we could be going could be far worse than where we are," the author adds. "That is why it's so important to name it, to call it out, speak out against it as much as we can."
