According to PEN America, book bans and challenges have increased exponentially since 2021, and hundreds of books are being taken off shelves and out of classrooms. The majority of banned books are written by and about Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian-American, and LGBTQ+ authors and characters whose stories speak powerful and important truths about history, identity, resilience, and imagination.
In response, many people are hosting banned book readings, giveaways, and displays. To support these efforts, we have created a list of some of our favorite banned books that we recommend featuring for banned book collections.
Book List
How do we know these are banned books? Most of the titles are in the comprehensive PEN America database. A few titles were reported to us directly by teachers. For example, a high school class in Oklahoma was reading Black Was the Ink. In response to a complaint by one parent and despite the students being enthralled with the text, the books were removed from the school.
There are some “top ten” banned books that get a lot of attention and, consequently, increased sales — while others risk going out of print due to the censorship and limited limelight. For this reason, our list does not include all of the more famous books we also recommend.
We also list some highly visible, yet problematic titles that we do not recommend. These are frequently included in banned book displays and giveaways. While they should not be banned, we do not recommend featuring them because, unfortunately, they convey values of sexism, racism, ableism, or colonialism — or are inaccurate.
Additional Resources
- Create a Banned Books Pop-Up Display
- NEA’s Read Across America Books Banned or Challenged in Schools
- Banned Books and Publishing Industry Censorship
- Banning of Native Voices/Books
- Missing From the Shelf: Book Challenges and Lack of Diversity in Children’s Literature
- As Schools Ban Books by Authors of Color, Young People Pay the PriceBook Bans are Targeting the History of Oppression
- Native Writers Submit Letter to Congress on Book Bans
- “Free Our Books” Say Fourth Graders After Studying Representation and Book Bans
- Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression In Schools
- Guess What? There’s Already Under-Representation in School Curricula
- That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
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