Freedom to Read Week

A selection of titles that have been banned or challenged in Canada. Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed to them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Updated January 25, 2023
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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...
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,...
Someone knows my name
Hill, Lawrence
Paper Book
Kidnapped from Africa as a child, Aminata Diallo is enslaved in South Carolina but escapes during the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan she becomes a scribe for the British, recording the names of blacks who have served the King and earned their freedom in Nova Scotia. But the hardship...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. Look for The Testaments, the...
The wars
Findley, Timothy
Paper Book
The diviners
Laurence, Margaret.
Paper Book
Morag Gunn, now in her mid-forties, lives in a riverside farmhouse in Eastern Ontario. Through a series of flashbacks she reviews the painful and exhilarating moments of her earlier life: her childhood on the social margins of the small prairie town of Manawaka; her escape from a demeaning marriage...
Lives of girls and women
Munro, Alice
Paper Book
'Superb' Independent 'Exact and unflinching' Guardian Catching frogs, grazing knees, singing songs to save England from Hitler - that was childhood for Del Jordan, and now she's impatient for more. More than she can find in...
The bluest eye
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
The Bluest Eye,published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes...
A jest of God
Laurence, Margaret
Paper Book
A thirty-four-year-old school teacher living with her mother, Rachel Cameron feels trapped in an environment of small-town deceit and pettiness--her own and that of others. She longs for contact with another human being who shares her rebellious spirit. Finally, by confronting both love and...
Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone
Rowling, J. K.
Paper Book
Galloping gargoyles ... 2022 is the silver anniversary of J.K. Rowling's magical classic Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone! The boy wizard Harry Potter has been casting a spell over young readers and their families ever since 1997. Now the first book in this...
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 hate u give
Thomas, Angie
Paper Book
Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2018. Winner of the 2018 Silver Inky Award #1 New York Times bestseller A Teen Vogue Best YA Book of the Year "Stunning."-John Green "A masterpiece."-The Huffington Post "An essential read for everyone."-Teen Vogue "Outstanding." -The Guardian Sixteen...
The golden compass
Pullman, Philip
Paper Book
The modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an "All-Time Greatest Novel" and Newsweek hailed as a "Top 100 Book of All Time." Philip Pullman takes readers to a world where humans have animal familiars and where parallel universes are within reach. ...
Underground to Canada
Smucker, Barbara
Paper Book
One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools, this novels tells how, for the black slaves of 19th-century America, heaven didn't lie in the blue beyond, but over the border in free Canada.
Bedtime for Frances
Hoban, Russell
Paper Book
This beloved classic bedtime book continues to spark giggles and is a perfect read-aloud at bedtime. It may be bedtime for Frances, but before Frances can sleep, she needs a glass of milk, a kiss from Father, one from Mother, her teddy bear, her doll, another kiss from Father, and another...
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...

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