Established in 1982, Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community in shared support of the freedom to read. This year's theme is "Freed between the lines.".
"Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. By focusing on efforts to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas." ALA.org
Gender Queer was challenged in libraries 106 times in 2023.
Every year, the American Library Association compiles data on censorship attempts in libraries around the United States based on reports from the field and media coverage.
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.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was challenged 68 times in 2023
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME * 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.
The Bluest Eye was challenged 62 times in 2023
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 It was challenged 55 times in 2023
Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was challenged 56 times in 2023
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.
Gender Queer was challeged 106 times in 2023
From Films on Demand Archival Films & Newsreels: Rudolfo Anaya’s “Bless Me, Ultima”was pulled from library shelves after Arizona passed a law banning Mexican-American studies. Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” depicts a world in which a religious sect fobids women to read. “Catch-22” was banned in Strongsville, Ohio.
From Films on Demand: In Florida, lawmakers recently passed measures enabling public schools to restrict student access to certain books and limit discussions of gender, sexuality, and race in the class.
From Films on Demand: Prof. Jenkinson discusses the escalation of schoolbook protests. See a list of books that have been censored or banned. Teachers' reflect on the effects of teaching controversial material in the classroom.
Censorship has been going on for a long time. This film from 1994 is relevant today.
From Films on Demand: Throughout history, the banning, burning, or censoring of books was usually instigated by a writer’s subversive, sexual, or politically incorrect ideas. Among such books are "Huckleberry Finn, "Lady Chatterley’s Lover," and the Harry Potter novels.
