Books Banned for Age Inappropriateness
25 books · 1196 total challenges
Gender Queer: A Memoir
Gender Queer is a graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe that explores eir journey with gender identity and sexuality. The book h...
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz was the most challenged book in America from 1990 to 1999, targeted ...
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racial injustice in the American South, challenged for its use of racial...
It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris is a comprehensive sex education book for young people. It has been one of the ...
Melissa (formerly George)
Alex Gino's middle-grade novel about a transgender fourth-grader, the most banned book in America from 2018 to 2020....
The Giver
Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal-winning dystopian novel about a society that has eliminated pain, color, and choice, challeng...
And Tango Makes Three
A children's picture book about two male penguins who raise a chick together, based on a true story from the Central Par...
The Chocolate War
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is a YA novel about a student who refuses to participate in his school's chocolate f...
Lolita
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a controversial literary masterpiece about an unreliable narrator's obsession with a young...
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale
Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, ban...
Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak has been challenged and banned since 1963 for being too dark and frightening...
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls' memoir of growing up with dysfunctional, nomadic parents, challenged for depictions of alcoholism, sexu...
Beyond Magenta
Beyond Magenta presents the stories of six transgender and nonbinary teens through interviews and photographs. It has be...
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins' dystopian novel about children forced to fight to the death, challenged for violence, anti-government t...
Blubber
Blubber by Judy Blume depicts schoolyard bullying without a neat moral resolution. Banned for profanity, bullying depict...
Deenie
Deenie by Judy Blume follows a teenager diagnosed with scoliosis who must wear a back brace. Banned for decades because ...
Julián Is a Mermaid
While riding the subway with his abuela, Julian sees three women dressed as mermaids and is inspired to dress up as one ...
Living Dead Girl
Living Dead Girl tells the story of Alice, a girl kidnapped at age ten and held captive by a predator for five years. Wr...
New Kid
Jordan Banks, a Black seventh-grader from Washington Heights, navigates being one of the few kids of color at a prestigi...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon follows a neurodiverse teen solving a neighborhood myst...
Fifty Shades of Grey
E.L. James' erotic romance novel, removed from public libraries across the country for explicit sexual content and BDSM ...
Let's Talk About It
Let's Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan is a graphic guide to sex, relationships, and bodies for teens. One ...
Saga (Volume 1)
Saga (Volume 1) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples is an epic sci-fi/fantasy comic about star-crossed parents from wa...
Scars
Scars by Cheryl Rainfield is a YA novel about a teenager recovering from childhood sexual abuse who uses self-harm to co...
Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White is a classic children's novel about a pig and a spider. Challenged because talking animals...