Stand up for your right to read! Read a banned book. Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association
Every year books in libraries and schools across the country are challenged. Celebrate you freedom to read anything you want!
The top ten most frequently challenged books of 2015 are:
- Looking for Alaska, by John Green
- Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
- Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
- Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
- I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
- Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
- Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
- Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
- Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
- The Holy Bible
- Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
- Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
- Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
- Habibi, by Craig Thompson
- Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
- Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
- Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
- Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
- Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).
The Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books is compiled by the Office of Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10