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 31, 2026
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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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.

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Pride puppy!
Stevenson, Robin
Paper Book
★"[A] sheer delight and will be a welcome addition to shelves everywhere. Highly--and proudly--recommended." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review ★ "This engaging introduction to Pride parades for the youngest readers successfully testifies to the warmth and power of queer...
Fall on your knees : a novel
MacDonald, Ann-Marie
Paper Book
Following the curves of the twentieth century, FALL ON YOUR KNEES takes us from haunted Cape Breton island in Nova Scotia through the battlefields of World War I into the emerging jazz scene in New York City, and immerses us in the lives of four unforgettable sisters. The children of a driven and...
A court of thorns and roses
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
Coming soon ... return to Prythian with TWO new books in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Pre-order ACOTAR 6 for 27th October 26, and ACOTAR 7 for 12th January 27. The first instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON and TikTok sensation, from multi-million selling and #1...
Milk and honey
Kaur, Rupi
Paper Book
"Rupi Kaur is the Writer of the Decade." - The New Republic   #1 New York Times bestseller milk and honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love...
We have always been here : a queer Muslim memoir
Habib, Samra
Paper Book
Samra Habib has spent most of her life searching for the safety to be herself. The men in her life wanted to police her, the women had only shown her the example of pious obedience, and her body was a problem to be solved. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have...
Fourth wing
Yarros, Rebecca
Paper Book
" Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the...
Heartstopper. Volume 1
Oseman, Alice
Paper Book
*Acclaimed live-action Netflix series* *Winner of Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time - TikTok Book Awards* 'Absolutely delightful. Sweet, romantic, kind. Beautifully paced. I loved this book.' - Rainbow Rowell, author of...
I am not okay with this
Forsman, Charles
Paper Book
Sydney seems like a normal, rudderless fifteen-year-old freshman. She hangs out underneath the bleachers, blasts music in her friend's car, and gets into arguments with her annoying little brother. But she also has a few secrets she's only shared in her diary: how she's in love with her best friend,...
This one summer
Tamaki, Mariko
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller A 2015 Caldecott Honor Book A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book An Eisner Award Winner Rose is always excited for summer. It means the lake house with her parents, but most importantly, it means she gets to spend the summer with...
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...
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
Johnson, George M.
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller and the #1 Most Challenged Book in America according to the American Library Association In a series of personal essays, award-winning author and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores their childhood,...
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...
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) * The sixth and final season of the award-winning Hulu series starring Elisabeth Moss is now streaming ...
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...
The wars
Findley, Timothy.
Paper Book
The golden compass
Pullman, Philip
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "MARVELOUS."--The New Yorker * An Entertainment Weekly All-Time Greatest Novel * A Newsweek Top 100 Book of All Time * Winner of the Carnegie Medal * The Inspiration for the HBO Original Series His Dark Materials ...
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...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South--and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To...
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. ...
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.
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...
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...
Flamer
Curato, Mike
Paper Book
Named one of Kirkus' best books of the 21st century. 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...
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