Banned Books Week 2016!

Stand up for your right to read! Read a banned book. Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association

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:

  1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
  2. Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  3. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
  4. Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
  5. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
  6. Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
  7. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
  8. 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”).
  9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
  10. Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
  11. The Holy Bible
  12. Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
  13. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
  14. Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
  15. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
  16. Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  17. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
  18. Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
  19. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
  20. 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

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