A Wave of State Legislation Is Promoting Book Bans for Kids and Teens. What Parents Need to Know

Earlier this month in New Hampshire, a brief but impactful law went into effect. It upends the privacy of minors by making their library records, which used to be confidential, open to parents.

In Iowa, also in February, lawmakers introduced a bill that would force libraries to create adult sections, where books could not be accessed by kids or teens without parental consent.

Across the U.S., there’s been a steady climb in such state bills, which target libraries by demanding they keep certain books out of the hands of youth. It goes hand-in-hand with the all-time-high trend of book bans and challenges — something iconic author Judy Blume has called “disgusting” and “fascist.”

The anti-library bills differ slightly by state — and country, as similar issues have been plaguing the UK, Bangladesh, Brazil, Hungary, and several other nations — and are being tracked by the American Library Association (ALA).

Sam Helmick, president of the ALA, has noticed a trend when it comes to how the U.S. state bills get introduced — one that hinges on sowing seeds of suspicion: “The trend is we talk about school libraries and ask, ‘Can we trust our school boards? Can we trust our teacher associations? Can we trust our librarians? Shouldn’t we really be examining more heavily what’s happening in a school library, and then if you want certain materials, you can go to the public library?’”

From there, Helmick explains, those behind such bills will target the funding for public libraries, followed by that of academic institutions. “So, it’s a pattern,” they say, “of, we don’t trust parents and teachers, now we don’t trust the general public, and now we’re going to dismantle these institutions.”

‘A Bill Looking for a Problem’

Parents, says Helmick, already can control what their kids borrow from libraries if that’s what they choose to do.

“I was raised as a conservative Christian homeschooler, and my mom and dad took the little red wagon, and we went to the library. And there were books on evolution and dinosaurs I wasn’t permitted to check out. There were books on mythology I wasn’t allowed to check out. And mom and dad put guardrails on what they wanted me to read,” Helmick says.

But the new bill in Iowa further complicates that by requiring librarians to indicate in card catalogues which books are “harmful to minors,” and to alert parents when a minor tries to access one of the titles. “And that becomes tricky,” says Helmick.

“I feel like this is a bill looking for a problem,” they say, “and what it really is trying to do is a teach our children that the surveillance state from the government is preferred, as opposed to parental rights. But it’s also compelling the speech of our library workers to give up library records, which is typically forbidden by state code, let alone professional ethics.”

Case Study: Idaho

For Sherry Scheline, director of the Donnelly Public Library in Idaho, the upswing in anti-library sentiment in the U.S. has gotten intensely personal — and downright nasty.

Hers was the first state to turn one of these bills, the Children’s School and Library Protection Act, or House Bill 710, into law. But it is vague and runs on what Scheline calls “citizen-driven bounty systems,” leaving librarians vulnerable — especially in rural libraries like Donnelly’s, housed in 1,024 square feet, serving 3,100 people, and operating on a budget of just $80,000 a year.

The law calls for a decision to be made within 60 days about the removal of any book deemed “harmful to minors” — following any one person’s complaint about it — with threats of civil damages and lawsuits for noncompliance.

“It is so ambiguous,” says Scheline of the bill, who notes that books dealing with “homosexuality,” “nudity,” and even partial nudity are targets. “So, is Captain Underpants inappropriate?”

The bill is currently being challenged in court — and was recently deemed “overbroad on its face” while threatening to “regulate a substantial amount of expressive activity” in violation of the First Amendment. It now returns to Idaho District Court for further proceedings.

But in the meantime, Scheline, also president of the Association of Rural and Small Libraries, says she has been targeted by a local resident (over a personal issue involving their kids) who is using the library law as a point of attack.

It’s led to ambushes on social media and the involvement of a state representative, who is demanding that Scheline remove five frequently-banned books from the library: the adult graphic novel Gender Queer; Sex Is a Funny Word, a guide to bodies for young readers; the puberty guide It’s Perfectly Normal; This Book Is Gay, a young adult guide; and Flamer, a graphic novel about a closeted gay teen.

There’s just one problem: The books are not on the shelves at the Donnelly Public Library.

“This is a witch hunt,” Scheline says. “This is a witch hunt from the far right to continue to bring down the quality of libraries and librarians across the United States. Why? Because we are the protectors of the First Amendment. We are the ones who make accessibility available to the public.”

Taking Vital Information Away From Teens

Some of the most banned and challenged books in the country — as well as those targeted by these bills — concern stories and information about sexuality, especially homosexuality. And they’re the books most sought out by kids looking to make sense of such issues. (It’s why Scheline, like so many other librarians, allows in-library reading time for teens.)

This not only hangs such youth out to dry, says Helmick, “but even worse, they’re going to get that information somewhere else. And it won’t be a curated collection of books that have an array of perspectives that have been written and edited and published.” Instead, kids with no library-book access will talk to their peers or they will go online, where they’ll find “partial pieces” of information.

This makes Helmick further question the motivation behind these bills — especially considering that, in 2025, 95% of American teens and 75% of American tweens had access to the internet.

“If this was really about protecting children from ideas, we would be talking about ISPs and screen time,” they say, like in Australia, which recently instituted a teen social-media ban. “For decades, parents have stewarded the educational life and information-navigational life of their children. But we’re not addressing the actual firehose of un-curated online content.”

And so, Helmick says, “You have to wonder if [these bills are] because the free pursual of information creates confidence and independence and makes folks inquisitive — and because it gives people autonomy.”

How to Help: Use Your Library

If you’re worried about your library and your kid’s access to books, Helmick has a suggestion: “The best way to advocate for your library is to use it. Get that library card, go through the stacks. Your library is yours.”

Next, visit Show Up For Our Libraries and Unite Against Book Bans to learn about ways to get active at local, state, and national levels, and “to connect directly with your representatives and use your voice to remind them that, for 250 years, libraries have been an American value, and we’d like to keep it that way.”