The 10 Best Books on ALA's Banned or Challenged Books List

Saturday, September 25, is the first day of Banned Books Week, a national celebration of our freedom to read; it was launched in 1982 in response to what organizers describe as "a sudden surge in th

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

You might think that banning a book about the burning of books reflects especially poorly on those who propose doing so. You are correct.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The beloved story of coming of age in the Jim Crow South pits the innocence of youth against the injustice of institutionalized racism. It possesses a clear sense of morality, but its use of racial epithe

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Seemingly Utopian futures tend to disappoint. In the case of The Giver, a society purports to have eliminated all pain and memories of it, but one boy is tasked with carrying knowledge of all the world's pain,

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

More dystopia! Successfully banned in Ireland and the United States, the book imagines a terrifying view of the future where hedonism and passivity are commonplace. Whereas 1984 worried that the peopl

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Profanity. Check. Sex. Check. Aliens. Check. Multiple dimensions. Check. Heartbreaking, inventive critique of war in modern life? Check, check, check. Amusingly, references to religion gave detractors an

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

So long as Holden Caulfield has been venturing into the city and besmirching adults as phonies, he has been the subject of book bans.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Nobel Prize winners are not immune to having a book banned or challenged, even when said book offers one of the most enduring and creative portraits of racial identity in the 20th century.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

That a writer could think so highly of children as to craft a story that prominently features a folding of the fabric of space and time is a beautiful thing. And few stories offer as compelling a respo

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Who is really crazy: the mental patient, or the parents who thought this treasure was unfit for their children to read?

Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle

You probably remember Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for its top notch artwork and tender story. This time around, Carle's story of an artist as a creator, which includes a somewhat abstractly drawn