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Top 10 Challenged Books of 2023
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The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information. Every year, the 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 media stories and voluntary reports sent to OIF from communities across the U.S. The Top 10 lists are only a snapshot of book challenges. Surveys indicate that 82-97% of book challenges – documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries – remain unreported and receive no media. ---American Library Association, 2021. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
Banned Books Week is September 22-28, 2024.
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1. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
Number of challenges: 106
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
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Gender Queer: A Memoir
Maia Kobabe - Oni Press
Format: Book
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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... |
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2. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
Number of challenges: 82
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
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All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto
Johnson, George M. - FARRAR STRAUSS & GIROUX
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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,... |
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3. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, providing sexual education, claimed to be sexually explicit
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This Book Is Gay
Juno Dawson - Sourcebooks Fire; 2nd edition
Format: Paperback
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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... |
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4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Number of challenges: 68
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky - MTV Books
Format: Hardcover
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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... |
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5. Flamer by Mike Curato
Number of challenges: 67
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
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Flamer
Mike Curato - Henry Holt and Co.
Format: Book
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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)... |
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6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Number of challenges: 62
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, EDI content, claimed to be sexually explicit
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The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison - Knopf
Format: Book
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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... |
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7/8. (tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Number of challenges: 56
Challenged for: profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Revised Edition)
Jesse Andrews - Amulet Books
Format: Hardcover
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The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film! This is the funniest book youll 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 hes figured it out. The answer to the basic... |
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7/8. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Number of challenges: 56
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs, rape, LGBTQIA+ content
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Tricks
Ellen Hopkins - Margaret K. McElderry Books
Format: Print book
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"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... |
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9. Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human
by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, sex education, LGBTQIA+ content
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Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human
Erika Moen - Random House Graphic
Format: Hardcover
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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 provides a comprehensive, thoughtful, well-researched graphic novel guide to everything you need to know. Covering relationships,... |
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10. Sold by Patricia McCormick
Number of challenges: 53
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, rape
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Sold
Patricia McCormick - Hyperion Paperbacks
Format: Print book
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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.... |
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NPL Materials Selection Philosophy
Library materials are chosen to serve the informational, educational, cultural and recreational needs of the entire community. The primary goal is to provide the best possible collection with the financial resources available. The Library strives to create an attractive, up-to-date, balanced collection representing all fields of knowledge and all sides of issues in a neutral, unbiased manner, as budgets, availability of materials and space permit. Library staff select materials covering a wide range of ideas, issues and lifestyles. Due to this diversity there will always be some materials that appeal or do not appeal to specific individuals. The existence of a particular viewpoint in the collection is an expression of the Library’s policy of intellectual freedom, not an endorsement of that particular point of view. The Library encourages free expression and free access to ideas, both essential elements in a democratic society, and does not knowingly discriminate in its material selection regarding age, race, beliefs or affiliations of the author or producer. The Library subscribes to the principles of the "Library Bill of Rights", the "Freedom to Read Statement", and the "Freedom to View Statement" of the American Library Association, which are included as appendices in the Norfolk Public Library Policies and Procedures Manual.
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