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.
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...
The Book of Negroes: A Novel
Hill, Lawrence
Lawrence Hill's nationally bestselling novel has garnered praise and awards around the world. The Book of Negroes has won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and CBC Canada Reads, among many others. Lawrence Hill--and his remarkable character Aminata Diallo-...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a...
The wars
Findley, Timothy
Robert Ross, a sensitive nineteen-year-old Canadian officer, went to war--The War to End All Wars. He found himself in the nightmare world of trench warfare, of mud and smoke, of chlorine gas and rotting corpses. In this world gone mad, Robert Ross performed a last desperate act to declare his...
The diviners
Laurence, Margaret
The culmination and completion of Margaret Laurence's celebrated Manawaka cycle, The Diviners is an epic novel, now available as a Penguin Modern Classic. This is the powerful story of an independent woman who refuses to abandon her search for love. For Morag Gunn, growing...
Barometer Rising: Penguin Modern Classics Edition
Maclennan, Hugh
Hugh MacLennan's first novel is a compelling romance set against the horrors of wartime and the catastrophic Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917, now available as a Penguin Modern Classic. In the winter of 1917, Penelope Wain is convinced her love, Neil Macrae, is dead--killed...
Lives of Girls and Women: Penguin Modern Classics Edition
Munro, Alice
A mother and daughter, caged with the internal strife of stifled desires, trapped ambition, and silenced dreams, seeking more in the world beyond home. "There is a change coming in the lives of girls and women." Del Jordan and her mother long for more outside of their...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
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 bluest eye
Morrison, Toni
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 subtly and grace.   In Morrison's...
A jest of God
Laurence, Margaret
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.
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...
The young in one another's arms : a novel
Rule, Jane
An award-winning novel of lesbian identity and camaraderie amid violence and war Ruth Wheeler is the one-armed caretaker of a motley crew of boarders living in her rooming house in Vancouver, British Columbia. The miscreants and outcasts in residence include a sexually...
The apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Richler, Mordecai
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the novel that established Mordecai Richler as one of the world’s best comic writers. Growing up in the heart of Montreal’s Jewish ghetto, Duddy Kravitz is obsessed with his grandfather’s saying, “A man without land is nothing.&...
This book is gay
Dawson, Juno
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
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 "Stunning." -...
The golden compass
Pullman, Philip
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. ...
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
Johnson, George M.
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. A New York Times Bestseller! Good Morning America,...
Underground to Canada
Smucker, Barbara
There's a place the slaves been whisperin' around called Canada. The law don't allow no slavery there. They say you follow the North Star, and when you step onto this land you are free ...... Taken away from her mother by a ruthless slave trader, all Julilly has left is the dream of freedom....
Bedtime for Frances
Hoban, Russell
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...

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