Description
What is Banned Books Week?
"The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to defend each person's right to read under the First Amendment and to 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, as well as 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 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a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in the collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from the library."
https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
What's the difference between a challenge and a banning?
"A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection."
https://www.ala.org/bbooks/aboutbannedbooks
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Past Display Books
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Call Number: PR6068.E66 A81 2006ISBN: 9780064472272Publication Date: 2006-04-11Presents the humorous journal of a year in the life of a fourteen-year-old British girl who tries to reduce the size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals, and win the love of handsome hunk Robbie
The Catcher in the Rye by Call Number: PS3537.A426 S2 2001ISBN: 9780316769532Publication Date: 1951-07-16
Drama: a Graphic Novel by Call Number: PZ7.7.T45 Dr 2012ISBN: 9780545326988Publication Date: 2012-09-01Callie 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. But how can she, when she doesn't know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that occurs once the actors are chosen, and when two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier!
Fun Home by Call Number: PN6727.B3757 Z46 2007ISBN: 9780618871711Publication Date: 2007-06-05Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned 'fun home, ' as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive
The Handmaid's Tale by Call Number: PR9199.3.A8 H3 1998ISBN: 9780385490818Publication Date: 1998-03-16
His Dark Materials: the Golden Compass (Book 1) by Call Number: PZ7.P968 G6 2001ISBN: 9780440418320Publication Date: 2001-05-22
The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, Book One) by Call Number: PZ7.C6837 H8 2008ISBN: 9780439023481Publication Date: 2008-10-01
The Kite Runner (Essential Edition) by Call Number: PS3608.O832 K58 2005ISBN: 9781594481772Publication Date: 2005-09-06
Thirteen Reasons Why by Call Number: PS3601.S544 T45 2007ISBN: 9781595141712Publication Date: 2007-10-18
To Kill a Mockingbird by Call Number: PS3562.E353 T6 2006ISBN: 9780061120084Publication Date: 2006-05-23
Frequently Challenged Books 2020-present
Gender Queer: a Memoir by Call Number: HQ77.8.K628 A3 2020ISBN: 9781549304002Publication Date: 2019-05-28In 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 family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
The Hate U Give by Call Number: PS3620.H62463 H38 2017ISBN: 9780062498533Publication Date: 2017-02-28Sixteen-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. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life
Looking for Alaska by Call Number: PZ7.G8233 Lo 2019ISBN: 9780142402511Publication Date: 2006-12-28First drink. First prank. First friend. First love. Last words. Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words--and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called "The Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
Out of Darkness by Call Number: PZ7.P4255 Ou 2019ISBN: 9780823445035Publication Date: 2019-09-10It's 1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town's divisive racism-- and the potential consequences of defying "the rules"-- better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. Can their love survive both prejudice and tragedy? Race, romance, family-- and the real-life New London school explosion-- converge in this riveting novel that transplants Romeo and Juliet to a bitterly segregated Texas town
All Boys Aren't Blue by Call Number: HQ76.27.A37 J644 2020ISBN: 9780374312718Publication Date: 2020-04-28In 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
Melissa (previously Published As GEORGE) by Call Number: PS3607.I4582 M45 2022ISBN: 9781338843415Publication Date: 2022-04-19When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's a girl. Melissa thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part-- because she's a boy. With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte-- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by ISBN: 9781451696196Publication Date: 2012-08-14A 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
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Call Number: PZ7.A56726 Me 2012ISBN: 9781419701764Publication Date: 2012-03-01Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Until Greg's mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia -- cue extreme adolescent awkwardness -- but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives. And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight
The Black Flamingo by Call Number: PZ7.1.A863 Bla 2021ISBN: 9780062990303Publication Date: 2021-05-25Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he's navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican--but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough. As he gets older, Michael's coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs--and the Black Flamingo is born. Told with raw honesty, insight, and lyricism, this debut explores the layers of identity that make us who we are--and allow us to shine
All American Boys by Call Number: PS3618.E9753 A55 2017ISBN: 9781481463348Publication Date: 2017-08-29Sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing. Classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who's the older brother of his best friend
Beyond Magenta by Call Number: HQ77.9 .K85 2014ISBN: 9780763656119Publication Date: 2014-02-11Author 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. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.
Lawn Boy by Call Number: PS3605.V57 L39 2019ISBN: 9781616209230Publication Date: 2019-03-19Mike Muñoz is a young Mexican American not too many years out of high school--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew. Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can't seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner) by Call Number: PS3551.L35774 A27 2007ISBN: 9780316013680Publication Date: 2007-09-12This is the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot
Speak by Call Number: PZ7.A54385 Sp 2011ISBN: 9780312674397Publication Date: 2011-05-10The first ten lies they tell you in high school. "Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself
A Court of Mist and Fury by Call Number: PS3613.A175 C68 bk.2ISBN: 9781635575583Publication Date: 2020-06-02Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court, but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people. Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future and the future of a world cleaved in two
