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BANNED & CHALLENGED BOOKS

Books somebody decided you shouldn't read.

Some books are questioned, restricted, moved, or removed. The circumstances vary. This shelf keeps the record attached to the books—and makes room to discover why readers keep returning to them.

How to read the record: a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict access; a ban describes an access restriction or removal, within a stated place and time. PEN America documents school access restrictions and diminished access. ALA's figures reflect challenges reported to its Office for Intellectual Freedom and coverage it collects; ALA notes its data are an incomplete snapshot. Neither record means a title is prohibited everywhere or remains unavailable today.

Source language, geography, reporting period, and measurement are shown with each record. Counts from different organizations are not added together.

The editorial shelf

Featured books

Fifteen works selected for their current relevance, historical significance, range, and discovery value.

Current school-year record

Sold

by Patricia McCormick

A spare, unsparing novel gives Lakshmi a voice and a future beyond the violence imposed on her. PEN’s 2025–26 school-year list places it among the year's most frequently documented titles.

Youth & coming of ageGlobal lives

Documented in ALA 2025 · PEN 2025-26 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Patricia McCormick

Current and cumulative records

Speak

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda’s silence after sexual assault becomes a precise account of how art, friendship, and the right words can help someone reclaim a voice.

Youth & coming of ageSexual violence

Documented in PEN 2025-26 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Laurie Halse Anderson

Repeatedly documented by PEN and ALA

Looking for Alaska

by John Green

A novel about grief and the incomplete knowledge we have of other people; PEN’s multi-year ranking shows how often a nuanced teen story is reduced to a challenge count.

Youth & coming of ageGrief

Documented in ALA 2025 · PEN 2025-26 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet John Green

Classic with a current school-year record

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Atwood’s speculative theocracy makes literacy, memory, and women’s autonomy part of the same struggle. Its continuing appearance in school-ban records makes the novel’s imagined restrictions feel uncomfortably close to the present.

Speculative fictionPower & gender

Documented in PEN 2025-26 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Margaret Atwood

Award-winning work in repeated records

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

Morrison’s first novel asks what a culture teaches a child to call beautiful, and what that lesson can do to a life. Its difficult language is integral to its account of racism and harm.

Race & identityLiterary fiction

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Toni Morrison

ALA and PEN records

Gender Queer: A Memoir

by Maia Kobabe

Kobabe’s graphic memoir gives personal form to questions of gender, sexuality, family, and self-understanding. The author’s notes and carefully chosen images make the book a distinctive invitation to listen.

LGBTQ+ livesGraphic memoir

Documented in ALA 2025 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Maia Kobabe

Repeatedly documented by PEN and ALA

All Boys Aren't Blue

by George M. Johnson

Johnson’s linked memoir essays move from childhood into adulthood with candor about race, masculinity, family, and queer life. The voice is intimate without shrinking the systems around it.

LGBTQ+ livesRace & identityMemoir

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet George M. Johnson

Recent PEN and ALA records

Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

Set in 1950s San Francisco, Lo’s novel lets a young Chinese American woman discover love and a lesbian community amid the Red Scare. History here is both intimate and political.

LGBTQ+ livesHistorical fictionRace & identity

Documented in ALA 2025 · PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Malinda Lo

Current cumulative PEN record; longstanding challenges

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

Celie’s letters trace a life shaped by violence and constrained choices toward self-possession, friendship, and joy. Walker’s novel changed the terms of American literary conversation and still asks readers to listen closely.

Race & identityWomen’s livesLiterary fiction

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Alice Walker

Repeatedly documented by PEN and ALA

The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas

Starr moves between home and school until witnessing police violence makes those worlds impossible to keep separate. Thomas’s debut turns a public argument into one young person’s urgent, complicated life.

Race & identityYouth & coming of age

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Angie Thomas

PEN cumulative and ALA historical records

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

Junior’s cartoons, jokes, and ambitions make visible the painful distances between a reservation school and an all-white high school. The book belongs in conversation with its humor, craft, and the complicated public record around its author.

Indigenous storiesYouth & coming of age

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Sherman Alexie

Historical ALA challenge record

And Tango Makes Three

by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

A spare picture book tells the true story of two male penguins who raise a chick together. Its gentle invitation to families has repeatedly met resistance, making it a useful reminder that censorship reaches young readers too.

Children’s booksLGBTQ+ livesFamily

Documented in ALA historical-2019

Find on Amazon →Meet Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Historical ALA challenge record

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Lee’s novel remains a central, contested classroom text about childhood, racism, and the limits of a white narrator’s moral vision. Its history of challenge is part of a longer discussion about how and why classics are taught.

Race & identityAmerican classics

Documented in ALA historical-2020

Find on Amazon →Meet Harper Lee

Series-level historical ALA record

Harry Potter series

by J. K. Rowling

A school of magic became a global reading community, while the books’ witches and spells also prompted challenges. The series offers a clear historical example of objections changing with the values people bring to reading.

FantasyChildren’s and YA books

Documented in ALA historical-2019

Find on Amazon →Meet J. K. Rowling

PEN cumulative record

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

Morrison gives slavery’s afterlife a haunting, formally daring presence in one family’s story. The novel’s ghost is not a diversion from history; it is one way history insists on being remembered.

Race & identityHistorical fictionLiterary fiction

Documented in PEN top52

Find on Amazon →Meet Toni Morrison

What the words mean

Challenged

Someone has asked an institution to remove, restrict, or otherwise limit access to a book. A challenge may or may not result in a restriction.

Banned or restricted

A source may use “ban” for a documented removal or diminished access in a particular school, district, or system. Outcomes can later change or be rescinded. The source and date matter.

Books with a documented history

Browse the collection

Explore books documented by PEN America and the American Library Association, from recent school-ban reports to historical challenge lists. Each title includes the relevant sources and reporting years; its appearance here does not mean it is banned everywhere or unavailable today.

A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess

Find on Amazon →DreamWalker author profile →

1 documented record

View documented record (1)

ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom · 2025
United States libraries and schools. Source wording: “Most Challenged Books of 2025”; reported challenges: 21. ALA annual-list figure; tied position. Read the source ↗

A Court of Frost and Starlight

by Sarah J. Maas

BANNED & CHALLENGED BOOKS

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