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Banned and Challenged Books: A Curated Selection from ALA and PEN America
A curated selection of books appearing in ALA Most Challenged Books lists and PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans — not a complete list of all banned or challenged books.
Sources & coverage: 2016–2025
The curated collection references PEN America’s 2021–22 through 2024–25 school-year indexes and ALA’s annual most-challenged lists. ALA records reported challenges; PEN America documents school restrictions or removals. Thirteen additional titles are verified against ALA’s 2016–2025 most-challenged lists, with the reporting year and source linked below. Earlier curated records retain their source labels without individual years or locations. Inclusion does not mean a book was banned in every year, everywhere, or that a restriction remains in effect.
73 books
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
A Court of Mist and Fury
Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo
Jill Twiss
All American Boys
Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
All Boys Aren't Blue
George M. Johnson
And Tango Makes Three
Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell
Beloved
Toni Morrison
Beyond Magenta
Susan Kuklin
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia
Katherine Paterson
Captain Underpants
Dav Pilkey
Crank
Ellen Hopkins
Drama
Raina Telgemeier
Eleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell
Empire of Storms
Sarah J. Maas
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Flamer
Mike Curato
Fun Home
Alison Bechdel
Gender Queer
Maia Kobabe
George
Alex Gino
Ghost Boys
Jewell Parker Rhodes
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
J.K. Rowling
I Am Jazz
Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Identical
Ellen Hopkins
It's Perfectly Normal
Robie H. Harris
Julián Is a Mermaid
Jessica Love
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Malinda Lo
Lawn Boy
Jonathan Evison
Let's Talk About It
Erika Moen
Looking for Alaska
John Green
Maus
Art Spiegelman
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Jesse Andrews
Melissa
Alex Gino
Milk and Honey
Rupi Kaur
New Kid
Jerry Craft
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
Nineteen Minutes
Jodi Picoult
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Out of Darkness
Ashley Hope Pérez
Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi
Prince & Knight
Daniel Haack
Push
Sapphire
Red: A Crayon's Story
Michael Hall
Sex is a Funny Word
Cory Silverberg
Skippyjon Jones
Judy Schachner
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
Sold
Patricia McCormick
Something Happened in Our Town
Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard
Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Storm and Fury
Jennifer L. Armentrout
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
The Giver
Lois Lowry
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher
This Book Is Gay
Juno Dawson
This Day in June
Gayle E. Pitman
This One Summer
Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Tilly and the Bookwanderers
Anna James
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
Tricks
Ellen Hopkins
Two Boys Kissing
David Levithan
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