Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 | Right to Read Day | National Library Week 2024

Created on April 24, 2023, 10:27 am

Last Updated April 8, 2024, 9:05 am

The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to defend each person's right to read under the First Amendment and ensure free access to information. Every year, ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from reports filed by library professionals and community members and from news stories published throughout the United States. Because many book challenges are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press, the Top Most Challenged Books lists and 2023 data compiled by ALA represent only a snapshot of book challenges. A challenge to a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in the collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from the library.

1) Gender queer

Author

Kobabe, Maia

Series

Gender Queer A Memoir

Formats:

eBook, Kindle, Comic, eComic

Description

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"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...

2) All boys aren't blue: a memoir-manifesto

Author

Johnson, George M. (George Matthew)

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, eAudiobook

Description

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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.

3) This book is gay

Author

Dawson, James (Young adult fiction writer)

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"There's a long-running joke that, after coming out as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex person, you should receive a membership card and instruction manual. This is that instruction manual. You're welcome. Inside this revised and updated edition, you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask: from sex to politics, hooking up to stereotypes, coming out and more. This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration...

4) The perks of being a wallflower

Author

Chbosky, Stephen

Series

Thorndike Press large print striving reader collection

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, eAudiobook, Kit

Description

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A coming of age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems, but also with the suicide of his best friend. A haunting coming of age novel told in a series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the life of Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. It's a story of what it's like...

5) Flamer

Author

Curato, Mike

Formats:

Comic, eComic, Kindle

Description

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"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."--Amazon.

6) The bluest eye

Author

Morrison, Toni

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, Talking Book, eAudiobook, CD audio book

Description

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The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove -- a Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others -- who 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...

7) Me and Earl and the dying girl: a novel

Author

Andrews, Jesse

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, eAudiobook

Description

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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.

8) Tricks

Author

Hopkins, Ellen

Series

Tricks volume 1

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, eAudiobook

Description

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Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family, and love.

9) Let's talk about it: the teen's guide to sex, relationships, and being a human

Author

Moen, Erika

Formats:

eBook, Kindle, Comic

Description

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"A graphic novel about sex, sexuality, gender, body, consent, and many other topics for teens."-- Provided by publisher.

10) Sold

Author

McCormick, Patricia

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, eAudiobook

Description

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Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.