Profanity

Books Banned for Profanity

9 books · 457 total challenges

BANNED 88 challenges

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racial injustice in the American South, challenged for its use of racial...

Racial ContentProfanityAge Inappropriateness
BANNED 75 challenges

The Catcher in the Rye

by J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger's classic novel about teenage alienation, the most censored book in American high schools from 1961 to 198...

ProfanitySexual ContentAnti-Family Content
BANNED 65 challenges

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain

Mark Twain's 1884 novel about a boy and an escaped slave on the Mississippi River, one of the most banned books in Ameri...

Racial ContentProfanity
BANNED 52 challenges

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck's Depression-era novella about two migrant workers, challenged for profanity, racial slurs, and its portr...

ProfanityRacial ContentViolence
BANNED 43 challenges

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale

by Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, ban...

ProfanityViolenceAge Inappropriateness
BANNED 39 challenges

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou's memoir of growing up Black in the Jim Crow South, challenged for its depiction of childhood sexual assaul...

Sexual ContentRacial ContentProfanity
BANNED 37 challenges

The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls' memoir of growing up with dysfunctional, nomadic parents, challenged for depictions of alcoholism, sexu...

Sexual ContentDrug/Alcohol ContentProfanity
BANNED 34 challenges

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel about a future where books are burned by the government — itself repeatedly banned and ce...

ProfanityReligious ObjectionsViolence
BANNED 24 challenges

Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell's young adult love story set in 1986 Omaha, challenged for profanity, sexual content, and being 'too matu...

ProfanitySexual ContentAge Inappropriateness