In the US, the ‘Big Five’ publishers – Penguin Random House (PRH), Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, and Simon & Schuster – have been joined by Sourcebooks, the Authors Guild, several authors, a library district, a teacher, students and parents in filing a lawsuit challenging the book-removal provisions of the state of Idaho’s House Bill (HB) 710, reports Publishing Perspectives.

According to the plaintiffs, HB 710, which came into effect on 1 July 2024, restricts children (anyone under 18) from accessing library books that contain ‘sexual content’, ‘regardless of the work’s literary or educational merit’, leading to restrictions on books in public and school libraries in the state, reported Publishing Perspectives.

Publishers Weekly reported that the plaintiffs further argued that ‘the law makes no distinction between infants and 17-year-olds, leaving books to be classified as harmful regardless of the age and maturity level of the child’, adding that a wide range of books were subject to the ban, from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to Forever… by Judy Blume. Nonfiction titles are also at risk, ‘imperilling access to factual resources’, added PRH in its release about the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs also argued that HB 710 ‘uniquely incentivises private citizens to file legal complaints against public libraries or schools through a bounty system’.