The Washington Post reviewed 1,000 school book challenges. Here’s what we found.

School book challenges have risen to unprecedented highs in the past three years, part of a larger cultural conflict over what children should learn about and read at school when it comes to race, sex and gender.

The Washington Post filed records requests with more than 150 school districts across the country, asking for copies of every book challenge they saw in the 2021-2022 school year. The Post received and reviewed more than 1,000 challenges totaling 2,500 pages - and conducted a first-of-its-kind analysis of the documents to reveal who is challenging school books, which books are drawing objections and why.

The Post’s findings paint a picture of a growing movement to remove books that feature LGBTQ characters, storylines or themes - and reveal that just a small handful of people are driving the national push to yank titles from shelves.

1. Just 11 people filed the majority of school book challenges

The majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.

Each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges. Together, these serial filers constituted 6 percent of all book challengers - but were responsible for 60 percent of all filings.

The Post profiled one such serial book challenger - Jennifer Petersen in Virginia - to understand what is motivating her. For more than a year, Petersen read and challenged five books a month. She ultimately read 24,172 pages and wrote up 6,556 words across her 71 school book challenges. She led her district to remove at least 35 of the books she challenged.

Petersen told The Post she is on a quest to eradicate inappropriate sexual content from Spotsylvania County Public Schools.

2. Book challengers object most to sexual and LGBTQ content

Books about LGBTQ people are fast becoming the main target of the historic wave of school book challenges. And a wish to shield children from sexual content is the main factor animating attempts to remove books, cited in 61 percent of objections overall, The Post analysis found.

Nearly half of the challenges in The Post’s database, 43 percent, targeted titles with LGBTQ characters or themes. In nearly 20 percent of the challenges, petitioners wrote that they wanted texts pulled from shelves because the titles depict lesbian, gay, queer, bisexual, homosexual, transgender or nonbinary lives.

Opposition to LGBTQ books is not a new phenomenon in the United States - but the current wave is probably unprecedented in scope and scale. From the 2000s to the early 2010s, LGBTQ books were the targets of between less than 1 and 3 percent of book challenges filed in schools, according to data from the American Library Association analyzed by The Post.

3. Books about race and racism are the second-biggest focus

After LGBTQ books, books about race and racism drew the most challenges.

Thirty-six percent of targeted books featured characters of color or dealt with issues of race and racism. Of the top 10 most challenged books in The Post’s database, five fell into this category: George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy,” Ashley Hope Pérez’s “Out of Darkness” and Angie Thomas’s “The Hate U Give.”

The Post profiled one South Carolina teacher who faced objections from parents - and students - after she tried to assign her class of high-schoolers Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between The World And Me,” which dissects what it means to be Black in America.

The district ultimately forced the teacher, Mary Wood, to stop teaching the book and to physically take it out of the hands of her students. Wood had to return to the classroom again this school year, unsure if she could trust the teens she was supposed to teach.

4. Picture books are a surprising focus of objections

Children’s picture books made up nearly 10 percent of all the titles challenged in the 1,000-plus complaints The Post analyzed. The discontent with picture books overwhelmingly centers on titles with LGBTQ characters and storylines, which were targeted in 75 percent of such challenges.

The top motive, cited in 64 percent of the picture-book complaints, was a wish to prevent children from reading about LGBTQ lives. The next most-common reason was books’ “inappropriate” nature, cited in 44 percent of challenges. The third-most-common reason was that books were “anti-police,” a charge included in 25 percent of challenges.

After books depicting LGBTQ lives, titles drawing the most objections were those that dealt with race or policing - or both. Twenty-five percent of challenges against picture books targeted titles that have characters of color or grapple with racism.

5. Most challenges come from parents

Of the 499 challengers who gave an identification, 21 percent said they were parents, 15 percent said they were filing on behalf of a group of concerned parents and/or residents, and 14 percent said they were filing on behalf of a Moms for Liberty chapter.

Challenges from teachers are comparatively rare, but they happen. Just eight challenges in The Post’s database were brought by self-identified school staffers - and two by self-identified students.

The Post spent time with four teachers who challenged a book in their deep-blue school district in Washington state. The teachers objected to “To Kill a Mockingbird” after Black students complained that reading the book was painful. The teachers’ challenge didn’t work out as they planned - the book remains available for teaching, and the campaign against “Mockingbird” wreaked havoc in their district - but they all said they would do it again, to protect children.

6. Half of challenged books stay, but LGBTQ books are most likely to go

School officials sent 49 percent of challenged books straight back to library shelves, The Post found, a discovery that some hailed as proof the national alarm over school book challenges has been overblown - although librarians warned of a severe burden on employees forced to spend months defending titles. The next most-common outcome, in 17 percent of challenges, was for a book to be placed under some form of restriction.

School officials permanently removed 16 percent of challenged books, making that the third-most-common outcome. The Post found that LGBTQ books were 30 percent more likely to be banned than all other targeted books. By contrast, books by and about people of color, or those about race and racism, were 20 percent more likely to be kept available compared with all targeted books.

Of the 140 fully banned books in The Post’s analysis, 41 percent featured LGBTQ individuals or storylines. Books by and about people of color, or dealing with race and racism, made up 10 percent of banned books.