For libraries these days, it’s the best of times and the worst of times.

As the American Library Association reported in April, there were 824 attempts to censor library books and other materials in 2024—a decrease from 2023 but still the third-highest number of challenges recorded since the ALA began tracking them in 1990. And new data collected by the organization’s Office for Intellectual Freedom reveals that 72% of those challenges came not from parents but from activist groups, school board members, and elected officials—in other words, a concerted political campaign to restrict the books that Americans can read.

That campaign is no longer shocking—but it is deeply depressing. As is so often the case, many of those titles deal in some fashion with race, gender, or sexuality, although these themes are not always central to the book in question. (Along the way, we’ve also learned that the basis for many challenges is illogical at best.) On the list of most-challenged books last year are some YA titles that Kirkus has recognized with a star—a designation that indicates exceptional merit according to our reviewers and editors. These works include George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto (2020), which our reviewer called a “critical, captivating, merciful mirror for growing up Black and queer today,” and Mike Curato’s graphic novel about an effeminate biracial Boy Scout, Flamer (2020), of which our critic wrote simply, “Buy it. Read it. Share it.”

Over my six years at Kirkus, I’ve come to recognize just how much those starred reviews really matter. At last year’s ALA Annual Meeting in San Diego, I spoke with a school librarian from Georgia who told me, “A good Kirkus review helps us make the case for a book, especially one that might be under fire.” That’s because Kirkus reviewers are known to be knowledgeable, experienced experts who can evaluate a title with fairness while understanding the role that librarians play in getting the right book into the hands of the right young reader. We take that responsibility seriously and understand that in today’s climate, it’s more important than ever.

That’s why, at the beginning of this column, I paradoxically asserted that these are also the best of times. As we prepare to attend this year’s ALA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, held June 26-30, it’s clear to us that school and public libraries have a special role to play in today’s fraught political environment. Although under attack, they remain vital community institutions that still enjoy a large measure of public trust, when many other institutions—including the news media and the government—have lost it. According to research by the Pew Charitable Trust, eight in 10 Americans feel that public libraries “help them find information that is trustworthy and reliable.”

If anyone needs to be reminded of the role that libraries play in our civic—and personal—lives, I highly recommend Susan Orlean’s The Library Book (2018), in which the author of The Orchid Thief offers a close-up look at the Los Angeles Public Library, “a place I love that doesn’t belong to me but feels like it is mine,” she writes. That’s a perfect description of how so many of us feel—now more than ever.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.