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,...
The Book of Negroes: A Novel
Hill, Lawrence
Ebook
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 Eleanor, 1939-
Paper Book
First published in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader is unable to forget its images and its forecast. With more than two million copies in print, it is Margaret Atwood's most popular and compelling novel. Set in the near future, it describes life in what once was...
The wars /
Findley, Timothy, 1930-2002.
Paper Book
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.
Paper Book
The culmination and completion of Margaret Laurence's celebrated Manawaka cycle, The Diviners is an epic novel. This is the powerful story of an independent woman who refuses to abandon her search for love. For Morag Gunn, growing up in a small Canadian prairie town is a toughening process -...
Barometer rising /
MacLennan, Hugh, 1907-1990
Paper Book
Penelope Wain believes that her lover, Neil Macrae, has been killed while serving overseas under her father. That he died apparently in disgrace does not alter her love for him, even though her father is insistent on his guilt. What neither Penelope or her father knows is that Neil is not dead, but...
Lives of girls and women.
Munro, Alice, 1931-
Paper Book
Lives of Girls and Women is the intensely readable, touching, and very funny story of Del Jordan, a young woman who journeys from the carelessness of childhood through an uneasy adolescence in search of love and sexual experience. As Del dreams of becoming famous, suffers embarrassment...
The bluest eye.
Morrison, Toni, 1931-
Paper Book
A jest of God /
Laurence, Margaret.
Paper Book
In this celebrated novel, Margaret Laurence writes with grace, power, and deep compassion about Rachel Cameron, a woman struggling to come to terms with love, with death, with herself and her world. Trapped in a milieu of deceit and pettiness - her own and that of others - Rachel longs for love,...
Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone.
Rowling, J. K.
Paper Book
Harry Potter spent ten long years living with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, an aunt and uncle whose outrageous favoritism of their perfectly awful son Dudley leads to some of the most inspired dark comedy since Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But fortunately for Harry, he's about to be granted a...
The apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Richler, Mordecai, 1931-2001
Paper Book
This book is gay /
Dawson, James (Young adult fiction writer)
Paper Book
The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. 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. There...
The hate u give. [kit]
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 "Stunning." -...
The golden compass.
Pullman, Philip, 1946-
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 Claassen, 1915-2003
Paper Book
Taken away from her mother by a ruthless slave trader, all Julilly has left is the dream of freedom. Every day that she spends huddled in the slave trader's wagon travelling south or working on the brutal new plantation, she thinks about the land where it is possible to be free, a land she and her...
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. [large print]
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968
Paper Book

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