In anticipation of Banned Books Week this week, both the American Library Association and PEN America released preliminary reports on book restrictions in public schools and libraries. In the first eight months of 2024, the ALA tracked 414 book banning attempts of 1,128 individual titles, down from 695 attempts and 1,915 titles in the same period last year. That’s a 40 percent decrease in attempts from last year, though the ALA notes that the current numbers are a marked increase since 2020. And there are likely more bans that the ALA didn’t track, as they weren’t reported by the news …