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ALA's Most Challenged Books of 2025
See the latest national list in one place, with direct links to every title.
View the 2025 list →Most Challenged Books
1984
1984 is George Orwell's dystopian novel about Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in the totalitaria...
Gender Queer: A Memoir
Gender Queer is a graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe that explores eir journey with gender identity and sexuality. The book h...
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz was the most challenged book in America from 1990 to 1999, targeted ...
A Court of Mist and Fury
A Court of Mist and Fury is the second book in Sarah J. Maas's ACOTAR series, following Feyre as she navigates the after...
A Court of Wings and Ruin
A Court of Wings and Ruin is the third book in Sarah J. Maas's ACOTAR series, following Feyre as she leads a dangerous m...
Empire of Storms
The fifth Throne of Glass novel placed #4 on ALA's 2025 most-challenged books list as Sarah J. Maas remained a major cen...
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racial injustice in the American South, challenged for its use of racial...
It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris is a comprehensive sex education book for young people. It has been one of the ...
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger's classic novel about teenage alienation, the most censored book in American high schools from 1961 to 198...
Melissa (formerly George)
Alex Gino's middle-grade novel about a transgender fourth-grader, the most banned book in America from 2018 to 2020....
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain's 1884 novel about a boy and an escaped slave on the Mississippi River, one of the most banned books in Ameri...
The Giver
Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal-winning dystopian novel about a society that has eliminated pain, color, and choice, challeng...
And Tango Makes Three
A children's picture book about two male penguins who raise a chick together, based on a true story from the Central Par...
The Chocolate War
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is a YA novel about a student who refuses to participate in his school's chocolate f...
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck's Depression-era novella about two migrant workers, challenged for profanity, racial slurs, and its portr...
Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers follows young soldiers in the Vietnam War. One of the most frequently banned books in...
Black Boy
Black Boy by Richard Wright is an autobiography of growing up Black in the Jim Crow South. Banned for decades for 'obsce...
Lolita
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a controversial literary masterpiece about an unreliable narrator's obsession with a young...
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale
Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, ban...
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials)
Philip Pullman's fantasy novel about a girl in a parallel universe, challenged for anti-religious themes and criticized ...
Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak has been challenged and banned since 1963 for being too dark and frightening...
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle is a beloved science fantasy novel challenged for decades by both religious conse...
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou's memoir of growing up Black in the Jim Crow South, challenged for its depiction of childhood sexual assaul...
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies by William Golding follows boys stranded on an island who descend into savagery. Banned for violence, ...