Is your favorite book banned?
Search thousands of banned and challenged books. Find out where, when, and why.
Most Challenged Books
Forever
Forever is Judy Blume's groundbreaking novel about Katherine and Michael, two teenagers who fall in love and make the de...
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning epistolary novel about Celie, a young Black woman in the rural...
Nineteen Minutes
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult examines a school shooting and its aftermath through multiple perspectives, exploring b...
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 ...
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is Stephen Chbosky's coming-of-age epistolary novel about Charlie, a shy freshman naviga...
All Boys Aren't Blue
All Boys Aren't Blue is George M. Johnson's young adult memoir about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey and Virgin...
Tricks
Tricks follows five teenagers from different backgrounds whose lives converge as they are drawn into prostitution. Writt...
Crank
Crank is a novel-in-verse based on Ellen Hopkins' daughter's experience with methamphetamine addiction. Written in Hopki...
1984
1984 is George Orwell's dystopian novel about Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in the totalitaria...
Sold
Sold is a novel-in-verse about Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl from Nepal who is trafficked and sold into sexual slave...
Speak
Speak is Laurie Halse Anderson's award-winning novel about Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman who is ostracized aft...
Lawn Boy
Lawn Boy is Jonathan Evison's coming-of-age novel about Mike Muñoz, a young Mexican-American man working as a landscaper...
Thirteen Reasons Why
Thirteen Reasons Why follows high school student Clay Jensen as he listens to cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, a...
Identical
Identical is a novel-in-verse about identical twin sisters Kaeleigh and Raeanne, whose seemingly perfect political famil...
Brave New World
Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel depicting a future society where humans are genetically engineered, c...
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...
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner follows Amir, the son of a wealthy Kabul businessman, and his complicated relationship with Hassan, the ...
Out of Darkness
Out of Darkness is a historical novel set in 1937 East Texas, interweaving a forbidden interracial love story between a ...
The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale is Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel set in Gilead, a totalitarian theocracy that has replaced the U...
This Book Is Gay
This Book Is Gay is a nonfiction guide for LGBTQ+ teens and their allies, covering topics from coming out to safe sex to...
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Stamped is a young adult adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, remixed by Jason Reynolds to trace t...
Flamer
Flamer is a graphic novel memoir about Aiden Navarro, a half-Filipino boy at a Boy Scout camp in the early 2000s who is ...
Water for Elephants
Water for Elephants is a historical novel set in a Depression-era traveling circus, following veterinary student Jacob J...
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 Thorns and Roses
A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fantasy romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast, following huntress Feyre as she's ta...
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...
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...
Empire of Storms
Empire of Storms is the fifth book in Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass fantasy series, following assassin-queen Aelin Gal...
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The first Harry Potter novel, the most challenged book of the 21st century, banned primarily for themes of witchcraft an...
Go Ask Alice
Go Ask Alice is an anonymous diary-style novel about a teenage girl's descent into drug addiction. It has been one of th...
Daddy's Roommate
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite is a picture book about a boy whose father lives with another man. The 2nd most ch...
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racial injustice in the American South, challenged for its use of racial...
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange follows Alex, a teenage delinquent in a dystopian future who leads his gang through nights of ultravi...
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Novel
Dav Pilkey's beloved children's series about two fourth-graders who hypnotize their principal into becoming a superhero,...
Heather Has Two Mommies
Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman is a picture book about a child with two mothers. Ranked the 9th most challenge...
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...
Twilight
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer has been banned and challenged for its religious viewpoint, sexual content, and occult theme...
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...
Bridge to Terabithia
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is a Newbery Medal-winning children's novel that has been repeatedly banned f...
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck's Depression-era novella about two migrant workers, challenged for profanity, racial slurs, and its portr...
Annie on My Mind
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden is a groundbreaking YA novel about two teenage girls who fall in love. Burned in front ...
Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers follows young soldiers in the Vietnam War. One of the most frequently banned books in...
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...
Drama: A Graphic Novel
Raina Telgemeier's beloved graphic novel about middle school theater, banned from school districts for including LGBTQ+ ...
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a graphic memoir about growing up with a closeted gay father who ran a funeral home. It ha...
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...
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume is a classic novel about an 11-year-old girl navigating puberty, reli...
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...
My Sister's Keeper
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult tells the story of a girl conceived to be a donor match for her sister with leukemia....
Wicked
Wicked reimagines the Land of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, exploring themes of good...
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...
Beloved
Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison set after the American Civil War. Inspired by the true story ...
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies by William Golding follows boys stranded on an island who descend into savagery. Banned for violence, ...
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls' memoir of growing up with dysfunctional, nomadic parents, challenged for depictions of alcoholism, sexu...
All American Boys
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely tackles police brutality and racism through two teens' perspective...
Beyond Magenta
Beyond Magenta presents the stories of six transgender and nonbinary teens through interviews and photographs. It has be...
I Am Jazz
I Am Jazz by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel is a picture book about a transgender girl. One of the most banned books ...
The Family Book
The Family Book by Todd Parr is a picture book celebrating all types of families. Banned in Illinois, Florida, and Texas...
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck follows the Joad family's migration from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bo...
The Nowhere Girls
The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed follows three misfit teenagers who take on their school's rape culture. Banned in multiple...
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a collection of linked stories about the Vietnam War that has been banned and ...
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel about a future where books are burned by the government — itself repeatedly banned and ce...
Shine
Shine by Lauren Myracle follows a teen girl investigating a hate crime against her gay best friend in a small Southern t...
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins' dystopian novel about children forced to fight to the death, challenged for violence, anti-government t...
A Child Called "It"
A Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer is a memoir of severe child abuse. Frequently banned for graphic depictions of violen...
Blubber
Blubber by Judy Blume depicts schoolyard bullying without a neat moral resolution. Banned for profanity, bullying depict...
Deenie
Deenie by Judy Blume follows a teenager diagnosed with scoliosis who must wear a back brace. Banned for decades because ...
Julián Is a Mermaid
Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love is a picture book about a boy who dreams of dressing up as a mermaid. One of the mos...
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Set in 1950s San Francisco Chinatown, Last Night at the Telegraph Club follows Lily Hu as she discovers her attraction t...
Living Dead Girl
Living Dead Girl tells the story of Alice, a girl kidnapped at age ten and held captive by a predator for five years. Wr...
New Kid
New Kid by Jerry Craft is a Newbery Medal-winning graphic novel about a Black boy navigating a predominantly white priva...
Oryx and Crake
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is a speculative fiction novel about genetic engineering, corporate power, and humanit...
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 ...
Animal Farm
Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegorical novella about a farm revolution that descends into tyranny. Banned for po...
Breathless
Breathless follows Claudine Henry through a transformative summer of first love, self-discovery, and sexual awakening be...
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is a sweeping Civil War-era novel challenged for racial slurs, romanticized slav...
The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank's diary of hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam, challenged for passages about her body, sexuality, and romanti...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon follows a neurodiverse teen solving a neighborhood myst...
Catch-22
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is a satirical war novel about the absurdity of military bureaucracy. Banned for sexual conten...
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 ...
Milk and Honey
Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry divided into four chapters dealing with survival, abuse, love, and femininity. ...
Monster
Monster by Walter Dean Myers follows a 16-year-old Black teenager on trial for felony murder, told through his screenpla...
People Kill People
People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins examines gun violence through six interconnected perspectives. Banned across multipl...
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...
Two Boys Kissing
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan follows LGBTQ+ teens attempting a world-record kiss, narrated by a chorus of men lost...
Eleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell's young adult love story set in 1986 Omaha, challenged for profanity, sexual content, and being 'too matu...
Watchmen
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is a groundbreaking graphic novel that deconstructs the superhero genre. Banned ...
A Stolen Life
A Stolen Life is Jaycee Dugard's memoir of being kidnapped at age eleven and held captive for eighteen years by Phillip ...
Damsel
Damsel is a dark feminist fairy tale in which a prince rescues a girl from a dragon, only for her to discover that the r...
Fifty Shades of Grey
E.L. James' erotic romance novel, removed from public libraries across the country for explicit sexual content and BDSM ...
Glass
Glass is the sequel to Crank, continuing Kristina Snow's descent into methamphetamine addiction as she loses custody of ...
Let's Talk About It
Let's Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan is a graphic guide to sex, relationships, and bodies for teens. One ...
Storm and Fury
Storm and Fury follows Trinity Marrow, an eighteen-year-old with a dangerous secret, who is caught between warring angel...
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic American novel about wealth, obsession, and the American Dream. Cha...
A Court of Frost and Starlight
A Court of Frost and Starlight is a bridge novella in Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses series, following Feyr...
American Psycho
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis is a satirical novel about a Wall Street serial killer. Banned in Australia, restri...
Impulse
Impulse follows three teenagers who meet in a psychiatric hospital after each has attempted suicide. It has been challen...
James and the Giant Peach
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl is a children's fantasy about a boy who escapes his cruel aunts inside a magical...
Kingdom of Ash
Kingdom of Ash is the epic conclusion to Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass series, in which Aelin Galathynius fights to sa...
Lucky
Lucky is Alice Sebold's memoir of being raped as a college freshman and the subsequent criminal trial. It has been chall...
Nickel and Dimed
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich is an undercover investigation of low-wage work in America. Challenged for promot...
Perfect
Perfect follows four teenagers whose pursuit of perfection leads them into eating disorders, steroid abuse, drug addicti...
Red Hood
Red Hood is a feminist retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in which Bisou Martel discovers a connection between her body...
Saga (Volume 1)
Saga (Volume 1) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples is an epic sci-fi/fantasy comic about star-crossed parents from wa...
Scars
Scars by Cheryl Rainfield is a YA novel about a teenager recovering from childhood sexual abuse who uses self-harm to co...
Tilt
Tilt follows three teenagers whose lives intersect around love, sex, and identity, told in Ellen Hopkins's signature ver...
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes tells the story of Charlie Gordon, a man with an intellectual disability who underg...
A Court of Silver Flames
A Court of Silver Flames follows Nesta Archeron as she deals with trauma, trains as a warrior, and begins a relationship...
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...
Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, banned for depictions of torture, ...
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...
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston follows Janie Crawford's search for love and independence in the earl...
Tower of Dawn
Tower of Dawn follows Chaol Westfall as he journeys to the southern continent seeking healing and an alliance against th...
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...
Homegoing
Homegoing traces two branches of a family tree across three centuries, from 18th-century Ghana through the slave trade t...
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'...
Man o' War
Man o' War follows River, a nonbinary teen and competitive swimmer, navigating gender identity, first love, and family e...
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...
The Infinite Moment of Us
The Infinite Moment of Us follows Wren and Charlie as they fall in love the summer after high school graduation, navigat...
Traffick
Traffick is the sequel to Tricks, following five teenagers trapped in sex trafficking as they fight to escape and rebuil...
Vampire Academy
Vampire Academy follows Rose Hathaway, a half-vampire guardian-in-training, and her best friend Lissa, a Moroi vampire p...
Fight Club
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel about masculinity, consumerism, and underground violence. Banned from the Texas...
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is the pioneering true crime book about the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Kansas. ...
Shout
Shout is Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir-in-verse about surviving sexual assault, becoming a writer, and the decades she ...
This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story
This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story follows Nathan Bird, a film-obsessed teen who realizes he's in love with his best fri...
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...
House of Earth and Blood
House of Earth and Blood is the first book in Sarah J. Maas's Crescent City series, following half-fae Bryce Quinlan as ...
Like a Love Story
Like a Love Story follows three teenagers in 1989 New York City navigating love, identity, and the AIDS crisis. It has b...
More Happy Than Not
More Happy Than Not follows Aaron Soto, a Bronx teenager who considers a memory-altering procedure to forget his emergin...
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...
The You I've Never Known
The You I've Never Known follows Ariel, a teen discovering her sexual orientation while uncovering the truth about her f...
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...
The Upside of Unrequited
The Upside of Unrequited follows Molly Peskin-Suso, a plus-size teen with 26 unrequited crushes, as she navigates love a...
Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White is a classic children's novel about a pig and a spider. Challenged because talking animals...
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. was banned in Texas in 2010 because the State Board of Educa...