Click on the book covers below to check out your favorite banned / challenged books of 2022!
Want more details about the book? Hover over the black circle with the "i" for a description of what the book is about.
SWIC Libraries provide books in a variety of formats (print, audio, and e-book) if you don't see the option you prefer it's easy to request books in the format you enjoy.
Gender Queer: a Memoir
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2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. "It's also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." -- SLJ (starred review)
All Boys Aren't Blue
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A New York Times Bestseller! Optioned for television by Gabrielle Union Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and MSNBC feature stories Velshi Banned Book Club Amazon Best Book of the Year Indie Bestseller Teen Vogue Recommended Read Buzzfeed Recommended Read People Magazine Best Book of the Summer A New York Library Best Book of 2020 A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2020 ... and more! In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.
This Book Is Gay
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The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBTQ also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations. Inside this revised and updated edition, you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask, with topics like: Stereotypes--the facts and fiction Coming out as LGBT Where to meet people like you The ins and outs of gay sex How to flirt And so much more! You will be entertained. You will be informed. But most importantly, you will know that however you identify (or don't) and whomever you love, you are exceptional. You matter. And so does this book. This book is for: LGBTQIA+ teens, tweens, and adults Readers looking to learn more about the LGBTQIA+ community Parents of gay kids and other LGBT youth Educators looking for advice about the LGBTQIA+ community Praise for This Book is Gay: A GuardianBest Book of the Year 2018 Garden State Teen Book Award Winner "The book every LGBT person would have killed for as a teenager, told in the voice of a wise best friend. Frank, warm, funny, USEFUL."--Patrick Ness, New York Timesbestselling author "This egregious gap has now been filled to a fare-thee-well by Dawson's book."--Booklist*STARRED REVIEW*
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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Read the cult-favorite coming-of-age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory. Now a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a funny, touching, and haunting modern classic. The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant "wallflower" Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. A years-long #1 New York Times bestseller, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and Best Book for Reluctant Readers, and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or "wallflowers" of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.
Flamer
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I know I'm not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They're mean, and scary, and they're always destroying something or saying something dumb or both.I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe.It's the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone's going through changes--but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can't stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in this debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love.
The Bluest Eye
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace. In Morrison's acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove--an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Here, Morrison's writing is "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (The New York Times).
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Revised Edition)
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The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film! This is the funniest book you'll ever read about death. It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he's figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl. This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg's mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg's entire life. Fiercely funny, honest, heart-breaking--this is an unforgettable novel from a bright talent, now also a film that critics are calling "a touchstone for its generation" and "an instant classic." Includes a teaser chapter from Jesse Andrews' new novel, Munmun!
Tricks
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Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family, and love in this #1 New York Times bestselling novel from Ellen Hopkins. When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival. Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons. Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story--a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, "Can I ever feel okay about myself?" A brilliant achievement from New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins--who has been called "the bestselling living poet in the country" by Mediabistro.com--Tricks is a book that turns you on and repels you at the same time. Just like so much of life.
Let's Talk about It
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Is what I'm feeling normal? Is what my body is doing normal? Am I normal? How do I know what are the right choices to make? How do I know how to behave? How do I fix it when I make a mistake? Let's talk about it. Growing up is complicated. How do you find the answers to all the questions you have about yourself, about your identity, and about your body? Let's Talk About Itprovides a comprehensive, thoughtful, well-researched graphic novel guide to everything you need to know. Covering relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education, and more, Let's Talk About Itis the go-to handbook for every teen, and the first in graphic novel form.
Sold
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The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph. Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words--Simply to endure is to triumph--and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision-will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes by the co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.
This virtual display allows you to request each title and find out more about each of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023.
Click the cover of each book to see more details about the Banned / Challenged book
The American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has be collecting data about banned books since 1990. The OIF has complied yearly lists of each challenge reported, it is likely the number of challenged books is much higher than what is actually reported.
Reports on attempts to ban books typically come from libraries, schools, and the media.
List of 100 most frequently challenged books 1990 - 1999.
List of 100 most frequently challenged books 2000 - 2009.
List of 100 most frequently challenged books 2010 - 2019.
The Hunger Games appeared three times on Top 10 Banned Books Lists in the 2010's. Reasons for challenges: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence, anti-ethnic, anti-family, insensitivity, offensive language, occult/satanic, and religious viewpoint
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has appeared on the Top 10 Banned Books List multiple times. Reasons for challenges: violence, use of N-word, featuring "white savior" character, perception of the Black experience, racial slurs and their negative effect on students, offensive language, racism, unsuited to age group
Dav Pikley's Captain Underpants series consistently made the Top 10 List during the 2000's to the mid-2010's. Reasons: offensive language, unsuited for age group, sexually explicit, anti-family content, and violence
Maya Angelou's, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, has been on and off the Top 10 List since its inception in the 1990's. Reasons: pornographic, full of "gross evils," objectionable language and content, profanity, encourages premarital sex and homosexuality, dangerous because it "preaches bitterness and hatred against whites," sexually explicit, racism, unsuited to age group, violence, and offensive language
Team Edward or Team Jacob? Neither according to those who wanted to ban the book/series. The Twilight series hit the Top 10 list in the late 2000's. Reasons: religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, and violence
The true story of penguins at the New York City Zoo landed this children's book on the Top 10 list in 2006 and has been a mainstay since then. Reasons: anti-family, homosexuality, unsuited to age group, anti-ethnic, religious viewpoint, sexism, political viewpoint, "promotes the homosexual agenda," and features same sex relationship
The Color Purple is #17 on the Top 100 Banned / Challenged Books of 2000-2009. The book has been challenged multiple times through the years, beginning in 1984 and continuing to this date. Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, homosexuality, religious objections, rape, incest, drug abuse, and African history
The Perks of Being a Wallflower has been on the Top Banned / Challenged Books list for more than two decades. Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, drugs, nudity, suicide, anti-family, religious viewpoint, alcohol, smoking, date rape, and masturbation
The Harry Potter series was the #1 Banned / Challenged book(s) from 2000 - 2009. Harry had a bit of a reprieve in the 2010's, but landed back on the Top 10 list in 2017. Reasons: anti-family, occult/Satanism, religious viewpoint, referring to magic and witchcraft, for containing actual curses and spells, violence, and for characters that use "nefarious means" to attain goals
The Gossip Girl series has been at the top of the Banned and Challenged Books list for the past two decades. Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group, and drugs