Banned or Challenged Books

Read these dangerous books at your own risk!

Updated June 7, 2023
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Me and Earl and the dying girl : a novel
Andrews, Jesse.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film! Fiercely funny, honest, heart-breaking--this is an unforgettable novel from a bright talent, and a film that critics called "a touchstone for its generation" and "an instant classic."
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Auel, Jean M.
Paper Book
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Other
For use in schools and libraries only. A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit.
Running with scissors : a memoir
Burroughs, Augusten.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir from Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, now a Major Motion Picture! Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by...
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
Capote, Truman
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)--and haunted its author long after he finished writing it. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb,...
Flamer
Curato, Mike
Paper Book
Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in Flamer, his debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love. "This book will save lives." --Jarrett J. Krosoczka, author of National Book Award Finalist Hey...
As I lay dying : the corrected text
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
A true 20th-century classic from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury: the famed harrowing account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. As I Lay Dying is one of the most...
Anne Frank : the diary of a young girl
Frank, Anne
Paper Book
The compelling diary of a young girl on the brink of maturity as her life draws to toward its tragic end -- one of the most moving and vivid documents of the Jewish experience.
Lord of the flies
Golding, William
Paper Book
Golding's iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age.   This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler. ...
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Haddon, Mark.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic--both poignant and funny--about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. "Disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.......
Crank
Hopkins, Ellen.
Paper Book
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina -- she's fearless. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank....
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in...
Brave new world
Huxley, Aldous
Paper Book
Huxley's story shows a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability. An ominous warning to the world's population, this literary classic is a must-read.
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
Johnson, George M.
Paper Book
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. A New York Times Bestseller! Good Morning America,...
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken
Paper Book
An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s. In this classic novel, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who...
Gender queer : a memoir
Kobabe, Maia
Paper Book
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was...
Lady Chatterley's lover
Lawrence, D. H.
Paper Book
Lyric and sensual, D.H. Lawrence's last novel is one of the major works of fiction of the twentieth century. Filled with scenes of intimate beauty, explores the emotions of a lonely woman trapped in a sterile marriage and her growing love for the robust gamekeeper of her husband's estate. The most...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made...
The bluest eye : a novel
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.   In Morrison...
The things they carried : a work of fiction
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
"O'Brien has written a vital, important book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing...
1984 : a novel
Orwell, George
Paper Book
Written 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever... This 75th Anniversary Edition includes: *...
Out of darkness
Pe rez, Ashley Hope
Paper Book
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, Texas. 1937. Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. They know the signs that mark them. They know the people...
My sister's keeper : a novel
Picoult, Jodi
Paper Book
"">New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult tells the story of a girl who decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body in this riveting story that tackles a controversial subject with grace and explores what it means to be a good person.
The satanic verses
Rushdie, Salman.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths."--Newsday ...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really...
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression, in a deluxe centennial edition   Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught...
Sophie's choice
Styron, William
Paper Book
Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.
Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death
Vonnegut, Kurt.
Paper Book
Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time).   Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time * One of The Atlantic<...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
The glass castle : a memoir
Walls, Jeannette.
Paper Book
THE BELOVED #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER--FROM THE AUTHOR OF HANG THE MOON The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle...
All the king's men
Warren, Robert Penn
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE The classic, ever-relevant story of a backcountry lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power--American literature's definitive political novel. All the King's Men traces the rise of fall of demagogue...
Brideshead revisited : the sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder
Waugh, Evelyn
Paper Book
Black boy : (American hunger) : a record of childhood and youth
Wright, Richard
Paper Book
Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. It is at once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment--a poignant and disturbing record of social injustice and human suffering. When Black Boy exploded onto the literary...

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