Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores and schools. The annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community—librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers and readers of all types —in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

Updated August 17, 2025
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Night
Wiesel, Elie
Paper Book
A new translation from the French by Marion Wiesel. Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent...
The house of the spirits /
Allende, Isabel
Paper Book
A best seller and critical success all over the world, The House of the Spirits is the magnificent epic of the Trueba family -- their loves, their ambitions, their spiritual quests, their relations with one another, and their participation in the history of their times, a history that becomes...
Fahrenheit 451 /
Bradbury, Ray,
Paper Book
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman....
I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya
Paper Book
Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself....
The hate U give
Thomas, Angie
Paper Book
8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best · William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller! "Absolutely riveting!" --Jason Reynolds ...
Gender queer
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...
1984 :
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: *...
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
Johnson, George M.
Paper Book
This powerful YA memoir-manifesto follows journalist and LGBTQ+ activist George M. Johnson as they explore their childhood, adolescence, and college years, growing up under the duality of being black and queer. From memories of getting their teeth kicked out by bullies at age five to their loving...
Ulysses /
Joyce, James,
Paper Book
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Ulysses is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. It was not easy to find a publisher in America willing to take it on, and when Jane Jeap and Margaret Anderson started printing...
This book is gay /
Dawson, Juno.
Paper Book
The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. ...
The perks of being a wallflower /
Chbosky, Stephen
Paper Book
"A timeless story for every young person who needs to understand that they are not alone." --Judy Blume "Once in a while, a novel comes along that becomes a generational touchstone. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books." --R. J. Palacio, #1 New York...
Brave new world /
Huxley, Aldous,
Paper Book
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit "A masterpiece. . . . One of the most prophetic dystopian works." --Wall Street Journal  Aldous Huxley's...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
One of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time in display-worthy hardcover: A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution--from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times) The sixth and final season...
Lolita /
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich,
Paper Book
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. * With a new introduction by Claire Messud "The conjunction of a sense of...
Alice's adventures in Wonderland /
Carroll, Lewis,
Paper Book
Lewis Carroll's timeless classic brought to life by one of the most revered children's book illustrators of our time! Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to...
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic high fantasy adventure, The Lord of the Rings. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In ancient times the Rings...
Looking for Alaska
Green, John
Paper Book
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our StarsWinner of the Michael L. Printz Award * A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist * A New York Times...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This "powerful, mesmerizing story" (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author and a new introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers....
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 kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to...
Drama
Telgemeier, Raina
Paper Book
From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile and Sisters!Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon over Mississippi, she can't really sing....
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...
The catcher in the rye / J. D. Salinger.
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, 1951 - 2026 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...
Uncle Tom's cabin :
Stowe, Harriet Beecher,
Paper Book
The novel that changed the course of American history Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the long-suffering, good-hearted slave Uncle Tom, it aimed to show...
The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian
Alexie, Sherman
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller--over one million copies sold!   A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling and award winning author Sherman Alexie tells the hearbreaking yet funny story about a boy...
Maus a survivor's tale
Spiegelman, Art.
Paper Book
His dark materials /
Pullman, Philip,
Paper Book
***** THE BOOK OF DUST, the long-awaited new novel from Philip Pullman set in the world of His Dark Materials, has been hailed by the New York Times as "A stunning achievement"***** The Golden Compass,...
The Decameron /
Boccaccio, Giovanni,
Paper Book
Naughty, bawdy and newly repackaged, this medieval masterpiece is set against the background of the Black Death of 1348. The hundred linked tales in Boccaccio's masterpiece are peopled by nobles, knights, nuns, pilgrims, thieves and lovers - both faithful and faithless.
Lady Chatterley's lover /
Lawrence, D. H.
Paper Book
Lyric and sensual, D.H. Lawrence's scandalous novel 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-with an introduction by Kathryn Harrison. The basis for the major motion picture...
Candide, or, Optimism /
Voltaire,
Paper Book
In this new translation of Voltaire's Candide, distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the French novel's irreverent spirit and offers a vivid, contemporary version of the 250-year-old text. Raffel casts the novel in an English idiom that--had Voltaire been a twenty-first...
The Grapes of wrath /
Steinbeck, John,
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized--and sometimes outraged--millions of readers. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read A Penguin Classic First published in 1939...

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