The "Invisible Library" dataset is free to download. It contains detailed information on book bans by school district across the United States up to June 2022.

A snippet " The Topic Concentration chart above lends the clearest picture into the implied rationale behind the bans. Namely, the bans are not and have not been about the physical removal of a book from a shelf. The bans instead are meant to:

Virtue signal by people in positions of institutional power to voting-age parents interested in school choice, parental rights, and wedge social issues to the detriment of non-voting age students

Reject and exclude topics that challenge a perceived status quo from the public discourse (e.g. non-heteronormativity, non-cis identity, non-traditional gender roles, and non-Judeo-Christian books are targeted) "