The 20 Most Frequently Banned/Challenged Books in America
Discover the 20 most frequently banned and challenged books in America, from timeless classics like *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* and *Of Mice and Men* to modern staples *The Giver* and *The Catcher in the Rye*. Explore the controversial themes in literature by Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, and Alice Walker that have sparked censorship debates. Uncover why these challenged books remain essential reads, and see which titles top the list of America's most banned books—a must-read resource for educators, librarians, and book lovers navigating the fight for intellectual freedom.
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I Know why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
The moving and beautiful autobiography of a talented black woman. ". . . I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood . . . have I found myself so moved . . . Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death".--James Baldwin. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
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Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him. "A thriller, a gripping tale . . . that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick." —The New York Times
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Blubber
by Judy Blume
Jill goes along with the rest of the fifth-grade class in tormenting a classmate and then finds out what it's like when she, too, becomes a target.
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Bridge to Terabithia
by Katherine Paterson
A secret world of their own Jess Aaron's greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. He's been practicing all summer and can't wait to see his classmates' faces when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new kid, a new girl, boldly crosses over to the boy's side of the playground and outruns everyone. That's not a very promising beginning for a friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. It doesn't matter to Jess that leslie dresses funny, or that her family has a lot of money -- but no TV. Leslie has imagination. Together, she and Jess create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations set the only limits. Then one morning a terrible tragedy occurs. Only when Jess is able to come to grips with this tragedy does he finally understand the strength and courage Leslie has given him.
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The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
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The Giver
by Lois Lowry
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
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The Agony of Alice
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Right from the start, readers know that Alice McKinney is something special. In this, her very first book, Alice is in sixth grade, right on the cusp of adolescence and increasingly anxious about growing up in a household with no other females. "A wonderfully funny and touching story".--"Booklist", starred review.
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The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
Set in the period between the world wars, this novel tells of two sisters, their trials, and their survival.
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The Clan of the Cave Bear
by Jean M. Auel
An all-absorbing journey into man's possible past. Jean M. Auel, a storytelling genius, weaves a compellingly readable saga of human survival; an epic that transcends time and place. It is peopled with rich and complex characters who experience the full range of human emotions. All this makes for total involvement and believability in the light of today. A novel for all time.
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The Great Gilly Hopkins
by Katherine Paterson
Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's disliked them all. She has a county-wide reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters -- by far the strangest family yet -- Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. But the rescue doesn't work out, and the great Gilly Hopkins is left thinking that maybe life with the Trotters wasn't so bad ...