Rosemont College alum Patricia McCormick penned the most banned book of the 2025-2026 school year, according to a new report.

"Sold," a novel told through the eyes of a trafficked Nepalese girl, topped PEN America's annual list of books removed from school classrooms and libraries. The nonprofit tracked at least 25 instances where the book was banned, the most for a single title. 

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This number is a small fraction, however, of the overall censorship recorded nationwide. PEN America reported 11,982 book bans for the past school year, the highest amount in a single year since it began tracking these challenges in 2021.

"Sold" also topped the American Library Association's yearly ranking of titles most targeted for removal or restriction. It placed No. 9 on the ALA's overall list of the most challenged books from 1990-2025, which was released Monday.

McCormick, a two-time National Book Award finalist, has made these lists several times for "Sold." Last year, the novel tied "Crank" by Ellen Hopkins for the eight-most challenged title on the ALA's annual report. It also ranked No. 3 on PEN America's listing of the most banned books for the 2024-2025 school year.

In a video message shared to her Instagram, McCormick criticized censors who labeled her 2006 novel "pornography." She interviewed girls in brothels in Kolkata, India, and an imprisoned trafficker in Kathmandu to write "Sold," which also incorporates her personal experience with childhood sexual abuse, the author said.

"I (wrote) it because I wanted to shed light on child trafficking," she said in the video. "I wanted to be part of the solution. But the people who don't want you to read this book say it's pornography and they say the librarians who are keeping it on their shelves are groomers. 

"You know what's obscene? Trying to keep a book out of the hands of people who want to be informed. And you know what's indecent? Attacks on librarians. Librarians who are the heroes in the war for the freedom to read."

After graduating from Rosemont College, the small Catholic school in Montgomery County in the midst of a merger with Villanova University, McCormick attended Columbia University's graduate journalism program and obtained an MFA from the New School. She is the author of five other books, and the co-author of "I Am Malala," the first memoir of the eponymous Nobel winner and Eagles fan.

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