Celebrate your freedom to read by reading a banned or challenged book today!
What is Banned Books Week?
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. This amazing annual event is held the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information and informing citizens of the harms of censorship by spotlighting books that are being banned and or challenged across the United States.
Take a look at the list below and see if some of your favorite reads have made the list.
1984 by George Orwell
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Farwell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Forever by Judy Blume
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
In the Sprit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
Jaws by Peter Benchley
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Ulysses by James Joyce
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Some “Contemporary” titles”:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Albatross by Josie Bloss
Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice on Her Way by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Am I Blue? By Marion Dane Bauer
America by E.R. Frank
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini
Before I Die by Jenny Downham
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
Bullet Point by Peter Abrahams
Burn by Suzanne Phillips
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher (or any book by Chris Crutcher)
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Eight Seconds by Jean Ferris
Endgame by Nancy Garden
Fade to Black by Alex Flinn
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going
Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin
Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Hang-ups, Hook-ups, and Holding Out: Stuff You Need to Know about Your Body, Sex, and Dating by
Melisa Holmes and Trish Hutchison
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle
If There Be Thorns by V.C. Andrews
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
Inside a Thug’s Heart by Tupac Shakur
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Ironman by Chris Crutcher
Jaws by Peter Benchley
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles
Kendra by Coe Booth (or Tyrell by Coe Booth)
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Marked by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (or any of the “House of Night” series)
Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: a Savannah Story by John Berendt
My Father’s Scar by Michael Cart
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Night Talk by Elizabeth Cox
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
One Fat Summer by Robert Lipsyte
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Prep: a Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld
Rage by Julie Anne Peters
Raider’s Night by Robert Lypsite
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Shattering Glass by Gail Giles
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
Stolen by Lucy Christopher
Story of A Girl by Sara Zarr
Stotan! by Chris Crutcher
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman
Teach Me by R.A. Nelson
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
The Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur
The Shining by Stephen King
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
Ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series) by Lauren Myracle
Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Weetzie Bat by Fancesca Lia Block (or anything by Francesca Lia Block)
What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones
When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Stop by and check out a banned book today.
