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Top 100 Banned & Challenged Books from 2010-2019

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Top 100 Banned & Challenged Books from 2010-2019

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The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has been documenting attempts to ban books in libraries and schools since 1990. OIF compiled this list of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 by reviewing both the public and confidential censorship reports it received.

This list draws attention to literary censorship but only provides a snapshot of book challenges. About 82-97% of challenges remain unreported, estimates OIF, which compared results from several independent studies of third-party FOIA requests documenting school and library book censorship with the information in its database.

OIF offers direct support to communities to defend their right to access information. If you're able, please consider a donation to OIF to ensure this important work continues.

1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

2. Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey

3. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

4. Looking for Alaska by John Green

5. George by Alex Gino

6. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

7. Drama by Raina Telgemeier

8. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James

9. Internet Girls (series) by Lauren Myracle

10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

12. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

13. I Am Jazz by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel

14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

16. Bone (series) by Jeff Smith

17. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

18. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

19. A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss

20. Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg

21. Alice McKinley (series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

22. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris

23. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

24. Scary Stories (series) by Alvin Schwartz

25. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

26. A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

27. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

28. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

29. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

30. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

31. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

32. It's a Book by Lane Smith

33. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

34. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

35. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

36. A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer

37. Bad Kitty (series) by Nick Bruel

38. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

39. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

40. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

41. The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby by Dav Pilkey

42. This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman

43. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

44. A Bad Boy Can Be Good For A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone

45. Beloved by Toni Morrison

46. Goosebumps (series) by R.L. Stine

47. In Our Mothers' House by Patricia Polacco

48. Lush by Natasha Friend

49. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

50. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

51. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

52. The Holy Bible

53. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

54. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

55. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

56. Gossip Girl (series) by Cecily von Ziegesar

57. House of Night (series) by P.C. Cast

58. My Mom's Having A Baby by Dori Hillestad Butler

59. Neonomicon by Alan Moore

60. The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake

61. The Giver by Lois Lowry

62. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

63. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

64. Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle

65. Dreaming In Cuban by Cristina Garcia

66. Fade by Lisa McMann

67. The Family Book by Todd Parr

68. Feed by M.T. Anderson

69. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach

70. Habibi by Craig Thompson

71. House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

72. Jacob's New Dress by Sarah Hoffman

73. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

74. Monster by Walter Dean Myers

75. Nasreen's Secret School by Jeanette Winter

76. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan

77. Stuck in the Middle by Ariel Schrag

78. The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal

79. 1984 by George Orwell

80. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

81. Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

82. Awakening by Kate Chopin

83. Burned by Ellen Hopkins

84. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

85. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

86. Glass by Ellen Hopkins

87. Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesle´a Newman

88. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

89. Madeline and the Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans

90. My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis

91. Prince and Knight by Daniel Haack

92. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology by Amy Sonnie

93. Skippyjon Jones (series) by Judith Schachner

94. So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

95. The Color of Earth (series) by Tong-hwa Kim

96. The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

97. The Walking Dead (series) by Robert Kirkman

98. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

99. Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S Brannen

100. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

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Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019

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The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has been documenting attempts to ban books in libraries and schools since 1990. OIF compiled this list of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 by reviewing both the public and confidential censorship reports it received.

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...Arizona book sellers

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BOOKMANS DOES BANNED BOOKS VIRTUAL READ-OUT

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from PBS

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The Fiery History of Banned Books (Feat. Princess Weekes) | It's Lit

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Most Challenged Books in 2022: Insider News

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Most Challenged Books in 2022: Insider News

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US Book Bans: Inside The 10 Most-Challenged Titles | Insider News

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Book bans in America are rising. Here's a look at what's lost.

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Book Resumes for Frequently Challenged Books

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Book Resumes for Frequently Challenged Books

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Book Résumés help teachers, librarians, parents, and community members defend books from censorship. They detail each title's significance and educational value and are easy to share with administrators, book review committees, elected officials, and board members.

Bookmark this page! Thousands of library books face censorship, so new book résumés are added on a regular basis.

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A new free resource to support librarians, educators, parents, students, and other community advocates in their efforts to keep frequently challenged books on shelves.

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The most commonly banned books in U.S. schools include LGBTQ titles, international bestsellers, teen romantasy novels and a 1962 classic, according to a new report that compares modern-day censorship to Cold War-era McCarthyism.

More than 6,800 book bans were enacted during the 2024-25 school year in 87 public school districts across 23 states, according to a report released Wednesday by PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression. The report was released ahead of Banned Books Week, which starts Sunday.

"Censorship pressures have expanded and escalated," Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America's Freedom to Read program, said in a news release. "A disturbing 'everyday banning' and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread over the last four years."

The organization's annual " Banned in the USA " report says the current environment of "unfettered book banning is reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1950s." It defines a school book ban as "any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials" that leads to the book being removed or restricted.

The latest report found that 3,752 unique titles were affected by bans in the school year that ended in June. The most banned titles included "A Clockwork Orange" and "Wicked," while the most banned authors included Stephen King, Sarah J. Maas and Jodi Picoult. More than 80% of all bans originated in just three states: Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

This past school year saw fewer total bans than in 2023-24, at more than 10,000, though the number is far above where it was in 2021-22 (more than 2,500 bans), when PEN America first started to compile an annual report. Since July 2021, PEN America has tracked 22,810 book bans across 45 states.

One reason the total number of book bans may have dipped this year is that some titles are being pre-emptively taken off the shelves.

"This functions as a form of 'obeying in advance' to anticipated restrictions from the state or administrative authorities, rooted in fear or simply a desire to avoid topics that might be deemed controversial," the report states.

Another potential reason, as author Malinda Lo pointed out, is that previously banned titles have not returned to shelves. Lo, whose book "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" was No. 4 on PEN America's new list, said on Instagram that her 2021 novel made the cut "partly because all of the usual titles like 'Gender Queer' have already been banned and removed."

"Once a book is banned, it's gone," she wrote on Wednesday. "This is why we have to keep fighting these attacks on our first amendment rights."

"Gender Queer," a graphic memoir that debuted in 2019, was No. 1 on PEN America's Most Banned Books List in 2022, though it didn't even make the top 15 on this year's list.

Books with LGBTQ themes and characters - like "Gender Queer" and "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" - are consistently among the most banned books highlighted in the annual reports of PEN America and the American Library Association, and this year is no different.

Here are the 15 most banned books this past school year as tracked by PEN America, ranked in order of those banned by the most public school districts across the country:

'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess

Burgess' dystopian satire about a sociopathic, Beethoven-obsessed teen gang leader was banned in 23 districts in the 2024-25 school year. The 1962 novel was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971 and was named one of Time's 100 best English-language novels and one of Modern Library's 100 Best Novels.

'Breathless' by Jennifer Niven

Niven's 2020 novel is a coming-of-age love story that was banned in 20 school districts. On her website, the bestselling author describes "Breathless" as "the book I needed when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. A frank take on sex and love, parental divorce, finding yourself, and the importance of writing your story. Of writing your life."

'Sold' by Patricia McCormick

McCormick's young-adult novel, about a girl from Nepal who is sold into sexual slavery in India, was banned in 20 school districts in the last school year. This 2006 title was a National Book Award finalist and was on the Publisher's Weekly Best Books of the Year list and the ALA's Top Ten Books for Young Adults list.

'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' by Malinda Lo

Lo's young-adult historical novel about love and duty in 1950s San Francisco was banned in 19 school districts in the 2024-25 school year. The critically acclaimed 2021 novel won a long list of awards, including a National Book Award, Stonewall Book Award and Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.

'A Court of Mist and Fury' by Sarah J. Maas

This bestselling adult romantasy novel, which was banned in 18 districts in the 2024-25 school year, is the second book in Maas' wildly popular "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series. Maas, the only author with more than one title on this top 15 list, also has the distinction of being one of the most banned authors this year, with 162 total bans, behind only Stephen King and "Crank" author Ellen Hopkins.

'Crank' by Ellen Hopkins

Hopkins' 2004 young-adult novel was banned in 17 school districts. On her website, the author revealed this bestseller is loosely based on her "older daughter's story of addiction to crystal meth." She said "Crank" began as "a personal exploration of the 'why's' behind my daughter's decisions, and what part I might have played in them."

'Forever...' by Judy Blume

Blume's award-winning 1975 young-adult novel, which was banned in 17 districts in the last school year, has been a target of censorship for 50 years, according to PEN America. Blume said she wrote the book - which was named one of NPR's 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels and Time's 100 Best YA Books of All Time - because her daughter "asked for a story about two nice kids who have sex without either of them having to die."

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky

Chbosky's 1999 coming-of-age novel about an observant "wallflower" navigating the " strange world between adolescence and adulthood " was banned in 17 school districts in the 2024-25 school year. The No. 1 New York Times bestseller - which deals with topics including first dates, family drama, sex, drugs and suicide - was adapted into a 2012 film starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller.

'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire

This No. 1 New York Times bestseller, which debuted in 1995 and is a reimagined prequel to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was banned in 17 school districts. The story of "Wicked," however, is perhaps best known due to its adaptation into a Tony-winning Broadway musical and an Oscar-winning musical film starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.

'All Boys Aren't Blue' by George M. Johnson

Johnson's 2020 memoir-manifesto about coming of age as a queer Black man was banned in 16 districts in the last school year, and it also topped the ALA's list of 10 most challenged library books of 2024. In an interview with NBC News last year, Johnson said the real book censorship danger lies in the "soft-banning": "We can track the books that are being banned, but we can't track books that are not being ordered."

'A Court of Thorns and Roses' by Sarah J. Maas

The first book in Maas' internationally bestselling five-book romantasy series was, like the remaining books on this list, banned in 16 school districts. The central character in 2015's "A Court of Thorns and Roses" is 19-year-old Feyre, a moral huntress who is dragged to a magical land and falls for her immortal captor.

'Damsel' by Elana K. Arnold

This dark and twisted fairy tale, a 2019 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, is, on the surface, about a damsel who is rescued from a dragon by a handsome prince. Prior to "Damsel," Arnold's book "What Girls Are Made Of" was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award in Young People's Literature.

'The DUFF' by Kody Keplinger

In Keplinger's 2010 young-adult novel, 17-year-old Bianca discovers her high school's " slimy school hottie" has given her an offensive nickname - DUFF, or Designated Ugly Fat Friend - but she still ends up in a "closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship" with him. Keplinger was only 17 herself when she wrote this bestselling book, which was adapted into a 2015 film.

'Nineteen Minutes' by Jodi Picoult

This No. 1 New York Times bestseller is about the aftermath of a school shooting in a small New Hampshire town. Published in 2007, this is one of 29 novels written by Picoult, whose other works include "My Sister's Keeper," "Small Great Things" and "The Pact."

'Storm and Fury' by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Armentrout's 2019 romantasy novel is the first book in her three-book "Harbinger" series. " Storm and Fury " is centered on 18-year-old Trinity Marrow, who "may be going blind" but "can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits," according to Armentrout's website.

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The 15 most banned books in U.S. schools

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"A Clockwork Orange," "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" and "Wicked" are among the most banned books of the 2024-2025 school year, according to PEN America.