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!   This is the funniest book you'll ever read about death.   It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestsellerLook for The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, available now. An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times...
The Clan of the Cave Bear : a novel
Auel, Jean M.
Paper Book
An all-absorbing journey into man's possible past. Jean M. Auel, a storytelling genius, weaves a compellingly readable saga of human survival; an epic that transcends time and place. It is peopled with rich and complex characters who experience the full range of human emotions. All this makes for...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
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
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 her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated...
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...
Diario de una adolescente
Frank, Anne
Paper Book
Un testimonio único sobre el horror y la barbarie, y una celebración del espíritu humano y las ganas de vivir   Diario de una adolescente es una de las biografías más queridas de todos los tiempos, además de uno de los documentos más perdurables del siglo XX....
Lord of the flies : a novel
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 #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today...
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 profoundly ...
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
Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Boisterous,...
Gender queer : a memoir
Kobabe, Maia
Paper Book
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns,thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographicalcomic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortablewith strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's...
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
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
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of...
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
Přez, Ashley Hope
Paper Book
A dangerous forbidden romance rocks a Texan oil town in 1937, when segregation was a matter of life and death. A Top Ten Most Challenged Book of the Year "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New...
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...
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   They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the...
Sophie's choice
Styron, William
Paper Book
As the fierce lovemaking and fights of Nathan, a paranoiac Jewish intellectual, and Sophie, a Polish-Catholic concentration-camp survivor, intensify, Stingo, a writer who lives below them in a cheap rooming house, becomes more and more involved in their lives.
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
Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino. Celebrating its fortieth anniversary, The Color Purple writes a message of healing,...
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
CD
This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty politics with...
Brideshead revisited : the sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder : a novel
Waugh, Evelyn
Paper Book
Evelyn Waugh's most celebrated novel is a memory drama about the intense entanglement of the narrator, Charles Ryder, with a great Anglo-Catholic family. Written during World War II, the novel mourns the passing of the aristocratic world Waugh knew in his youth and vividly recalls the sensuous plea...
Black boy : (American hunger) : a record of childhood and youth
Wright, Richard
Paper Book
With an introduction by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright' s journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man' s coming off age during a particular time and place, Black Boy...

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