Book bans have surged dramatically—not just in Florida, but across the United States. In the 2023–2024 school year alone, over 10,000 book bans were recorded in U.S. public schools, impacting more than 4,200 unique titles. Florida led the charge with 4,561 bans, closely followed by Iowa with 3,671. According to PEN America, the pace is accelerating: last year saw nearly triple the number of bans compared to 2022. The American Library Association likewise recorded a staggering 4,240 titles challenged in 2023—a 65% increase from the previous year—while Florida, Texas, and other states raced to outdo one another in censorship.

These bans disproportionately target books by and about BIPOC and LGBTQ+ authors. PEN America notes that 36% of banned books feature people of color, 29% include LGBTQ+ themes, and 28% specifically include transgender or genderqueer characters. These numbers are especially troubling when students of color now represent more than half of America’s schoolchildren.

But this is not simply about books. As Heinrich Böll warned in Billiards at Half-Past Nine, our loss is not merely cultural; it is the very “spirit of humanity” that is under attack. When morality is hijacked by political populism and single-minded stupidity, we find ourselves rushing headlong toward the darkest echoes of 1933’s book burnings. Es zittern die morschen Knochen… No doubt, Böll himself would be banned in Miami.