Research Guides: Banned Books: Protect Your Freedom to Read

A Worrisome Trend

ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023. The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by OIF in more than 20 years of tracking: 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or by and about Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.

Censorship by the Numbers
Resources documenting the number and locations of censorship attempts against libraries and materials compiled by ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
Book Ban Data, ALA
Latest numbers from ALA about book bans and challenges in the United States, including preliminary data from the first half of 2023. TL;DR: They're up. A lot.
Banned and Challenged Books
ALA's page devoted to censorship attempts and the annual Banned Books Week celebration.
Book Bans, PEN America
Resources and commentary related to book bans in the U.S., including a comprehensive list of successful school bans, assembled by a national writer's association.
Ralph E. McCoy Collection of the Freedom of the Press
Housed in the Special Collections Research Center on the first floor of Morris Library, the McCoy Collection offers the opportunity to explore issues of censorship and freedom of expression from a historical perspective. It is one of the world's best collections of rare books highlighting the history of First Amendment freedoms. It includes examples of many books that have been banned in the United States and Europe over the centuries. Many of the books listed below part of this collection.

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used in Overview of African American history collections in SCRC on Resources for the Study of African American History in Southern Illinois: Overview of Special Collections
Beacon for Freedom of Expression
The Beacon for Freedom project maintains an extensive database of censored publications and publications about censorship.

Read Banned Books Free Online

The Banned Books Club and Books Unbanned are two initiatives to allow folks across the U.S. access and read banned books for free online.

Banned Book Club
Program to provide free access to electronic copies of banned books. Follow the steps to "Access Banned Books" to get your free card and start reading.
Banned Books Club at the Palace Project
Jump straight to the app the Banned Book Club uses to provide access to available titles.
Books Unbanned
A number of public libraries nationwide have joined the Books Unbanned initiative, offering free access to commonly challenged or banned titles in eBook form to readers age 13-26. If you fall in that age bracket, sign up for a free temporary library card and read banned books!

Top Ten Challenged Books from the Last Five Years

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Alexie, Sherman
#8 most challenged book of 2022 for profanity and supposedly being sexually explicit. #6 most challenged in 2021. #5 most challenged in 2020.

Fiction. "Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot."
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Andrews, Jesse
#7 (tie) most challenged book for 2023 for containing profanity and supposedly being sexually explicit. #9 (tie) most challenged for 2022. #7 most challenged in 2021.

Fiction. "It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he's figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl. This plan works for exactly eight hours."
The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood, Margaret
#7 most challenged book in 2019 for profanity and for “vulgarity and sexual overtones."

Fiction. "Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable."
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Chbosky, Stephen
#4 most challenged book of 2023 for depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, and supposedly being sexually explicit. #5 most challenged book (tie) of 2022

Fiction. "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."
Looking for Alaska by Green, John
#5 most challenged book (tie) of 2022 for LGBTQIA+ content and supposedly being sexually explicit.

Fiction. "Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash."
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper, Lee
#7 most challenged book in 2020 for racial slurs and their negative effect on students, featuring a “white savior” character, and its perception of the Black experience.

Fiction. "A young girl growing up in an Alabama town in the 1930s learns of injustice and violence when her father, a widowed lawyer, defends a black man falsely accused of rape."
I Am Jazz by Jennings, Jazz, Jessica Herthel, and Shelagh McNicholas (Illustrator)
#6 most challenged book in 2019 for LGBTQIA+ content, for a transgender character, and for confronting a topic that is “sensitive, controversial, and politically charged.”

Autobiography. "From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boys' clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way."
Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Kuklin, Susan
#10 most challenged book of 2021 for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit. #2 most challenged in 2019.

Nonfiction. "Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference."
The Bluest Eye by Morrison, Toni
#6 most challenged book for 2023 for depiction of rape, incest, EDI content, and supposedly being sexually explicit. #3 most challenged book of 2022. #8 most challenged in 2021. #9 most challenged in 2020.

Fiction. "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."
Out of Darkness by Pérez, Ashley Hope
#9 most challenged book of 2022 for depictions of abuse and supposedly being sexually explicit. #4 most challenged in 2021.

Fiction. "Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. They know the signs that mark them. They know the people who enforce them. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines."
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Reynolds, Jason and Ibram X. Kendi
#2 most challenged book in 2020 because of author’s public statements, and because of claims that the book contains “selective storytelling incidents” and does not encompass racism against all people.

Nonfiction. "As Kendi provocatively illustrates, racist thinking did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Racist ideas were created and popularized in an effort to defend deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and to rationalize the nation's racial inequities in everything from wealth to health."
And Tango Makes Three by Richardson, Justin, Peter Parnell; and Henry Cole (Illustrator)
#10 most challenged book of 2019 for LGBTQIA+ content.

Nonfiction. "At New York City's Central Park Zoo, two male penguins fall in love and start a family by taking turns sitting on an abandoned egg until it hatches."
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by Rowling, J. K. and Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
#9 most challenged book of 2019 for referring to magic and witchcraft, for containing actual curses and spells, and for characters that use “nefarious means” to attain goals.

Fiction. "Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, John
#8 most challenged book in 2020 for racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and their negative effect on students.

Fiction. "Tells a story about the strange relationship of two migrant workers who are able to realize their dreams of an easy life until one of them succumbs to his weakness for soft, helpless creatures and strangles a farmer's wife."
Drama: A Graphic Novel by Telgemeier, Raina
#8 most challenged book in 2019 for LGBTQIA+ content and for concerns that it goes against “family values/morals.”

Fiction. "Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon Over Mississippi, she's a terrible singer. Instead she's the set designer for the stage crew, and this year she's determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget."
The Hate U Give by Thomas, Angie
#5 most challenged book of 2021 for profanity, violence, and because it was thought to promote an anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda. #10 most challenged in 2020.

Fiction. "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer."
Sold by McCormick, Patricia
#10 most challenged book for 2023 for rape and sexually explicit content.

Fiction. "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."

Morris Library

Banned Books: Protect Your Freedom to Read

A Worrisome Trend

Read Banned Books Free Online

Top Ten Challenged Books from the Last Five Years