Yes, My Sister's Keeper Is Banned!

My Sister’s Keeper tells the story of Anna Fitzgerald, a thirteen-year-old who was genetically engineered to be a bone marrow match for her older sister Kate, who has leukemia. After years of surgeries and transfusions, Anna hires a lawyer to sue her parents for medical emancipation, the right to make her own decisions about her body. Published by Atria Books in 2004, the novel sold millions of copies and was adapted into a 2009 film. It tackles medical ethics, family loyalty, and the question of who owns a child’s body.

The American Library Association named it the seventh most challenged book in 2009. In 2023, the Urbandale Community School District in Iowa pulled it from school libraries alongside hundreds of other titles. Picoult posted publicly: “God, I’m sick of having my books banned.” Twenty of her books were removed from Florida school libraries that same year. An earlier challenge in Illinois in 2009 cited the novel’s depiction of sexism and homosexuality as unsuitable for students. Picoult has noted that while she’s established enough to weather the bans, younger and more diverse authors are suffering real harm.

Why You Should Read This

Picoult builds her novels like legal cases, presenting every side until you’re not sure who’s right anymore. My Sister’s Keeper puts you in the chair of every family member: the desperate mother, the overlooked brother, the sick sister who may not want to be saved, and Anna, who loves her sister but wants sovereignty over her own flesh.

The ethical questions in this book are the kind that don’t have clean answers, which is exactly why teenagers should be reading them. Should parents be allowed to create a child specifically to save another? Where does family obligation end and bodily autonomy begin? These aren’t abstract thought experiments. They’re real medical dilemmas that real families face. Picoult wrote a book that trusts its readers to handle complexity. Banning it is a vote against that trust.