Books Banned for Language
37 books · 1935 total challenges
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning epistolary novel about Celie, a young Black woman in the rural...
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five is Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war masterpiece about Billy Pilgrim, who becomes 'unstuck in time' and exper...
Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska is John Green's debut novel about a teenager who enrolls at a boarding school and falls for the brill...
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is Sherman Alexie's semi-autobiographical novel about Arnold Spirit Jr.,...
The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give follows sixteen-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses the fatal shooting of her unarmed childhood friend ...
Crank
Crank is a novel-in-verse based on Ellen Hopkins' daughter's experience with methamphetamine addiction. Written in Hopki...
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a darkly comic young adult novel about Greg, a socially awkward high school senior who...
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange follows Alex, a teenage delinquent in a dystopian future who leads his gang through nights of ultravi...
The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's debut novel, published in 1970, telling the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young Black g...
Beloved
Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison set after the American Civil War. Inspired by the true story ...
Push
Push tells the story of Precious Jones, an illiterate, obese Black teenager in Harlem who has been raped repeatedly by h...
The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones is narrated by Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl who watches from heaven as her family and killer ...
Breathless
Breathless follows Claudine Henry through a transformative summer of first love, self-discovery, and sexual awakening be...
A Clash of Kings
A Clash of Kings, the second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, continues the epic struggle for the Iron Throne ...
Burned
Burned tells the story of Pattyn Von Stratten, a seventeen-year-old girl raised in a strict Mormon household who begins ...
The DUFF
The DUFF follows seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper, who is labeled the 'Designated Ugly Fat Friend' and begins a complicat...
This One Summer
This One Summer is a graphic novel about Rose and Windy, two girls spending the summer at a lakeside town, navigating th...
Glass
Glass is the sequel to Crank, continuing Kristina Snow's descent into methamphetamine addiction as she loses custody of ...
Perfect
Perfect follows four teenagers whose pursuit of perfection leads them into eating disorders, steroid abuse, drug addicti...
Tilt
Tilt follows three teenagers whose lives intersect around love, sex, and identity, told in Ellen Hopkins's signature ver...
Beautiful
Beautiful follows Cassie as she reinvents herself at a new school, falling into a world of drugs, sex, and toxic friends...
Fallout
Fallout follows the three children of Kristina Snow from the Crank trilogy as they navigate the lasting damage of their ...
Grown
Grown follows Enchanted Jones, a teenage singer who is groomed and abused by a famous R&B artist, inspired by real cases...
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter follows Julia Reyes, a first-generation Mexican American teenager dealing with he...
The Haters
The Haters follows three jazz camp dropouts who start a band and go on a chaotic road trip through the American South. F...
The Poet X
The Poet X follows Xiomara Batista, a Dominican American teenager in Harlem who pours her frustrations with her strict r...
What Girls Are Made Of
What Girls Are Made Of follows sixteen-year-old Nina Faye as she searches for love and validation through her relationsh...
I'll Give You the Sun
I'll Give You the Sun follows twins Jude and Noah, whose bond is shattered by secrets, grief, and the discovery of Noah'...
Monday's Not Coming
Monday's Not Coming follows Claudia, a Black teenager whose best friend Monday goes missing and no one seems to care eno...
Smoke
Smoke is the sequel to Burned, continuing Pattyn Von Stratten's story as she deals with devastating loss, her sister's r...
The Female of the Species
The Female of the Species follows Alex Craft, a girl who killed the man who raped and murdered her sister, and the two c...
Traffick
Traffick is the sequel to Tricks, following five teenagers trapped in sex trafficking as they fight to escape and rebuil...
Shout
Shout is Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir-in-verse about surviving sexual assault, becoming a writer, and the decades she ...
Forever for a Year
Forever for a Year follows Carolina and Trevor through the highs and lows of their first serious relationship, told in a...
The Carnival at Bray
The Carnival at Bray follows Maggie Lynch, a Chicago teenager transplanted to a small Irish town in 1993, navigating gri...
The Sun and Her Flowers
The Sun and Her Flowers is Rupi Kaur's second poetry collection, exploring themes of growth, ancestry, immigration, loss...
We Are the Ants
We Are the Ants follows Henry Denton, a teen who has been periodically abducted by aliens and is now given a choice: pre...