Celebrate Banned Books Week, October 5-11, and join us in honoring the freedom to read. This national event highlights stories that have been challenged or banned in schools and libraries. Explore our featured collection of banned and challenged books and discover powerful reads that inspire conversation, curiosity, and open-mindedness.
Preschool
In The Night Kitchen
by Maurice Sendak
The book depicts a young boy’s dream journey through a surreal baker’s kitchen where he assists in the creation of a cake to be ready by the morning.
Sulwe
by Lupita Nyong’o
When five-year-old Sulwe’s classmates make fun of her dark skin, she tries lightening herself to no avail, but her encounter with a shooting star helps her understand there is beauty in every shade.
Middle Grade
Fire Star
by Chris D’Lacey
David Rain is faced with the most perilous task yet when Gwilanna returns, this time determined to resurrect the dragon Gawain on the ice cap of the Tooth of Ragnar, unless David and her friends can stop her.
Frankie & Bug
by Gayle Forman
In the summer of 1987 in Venice, California, ten-year-old Bug and her new friend Frankie learn important lessons about life, family, being your true self, and how to navigate in a world that is not always just or fair.
Young Adult
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky
Most people think 15-year-old Charlie is a freak. The only friend he had killed himself, forcing him to face high school alone. But then seniors Patrick and his beautiful stepsister Sam take Charlie under their wings and introduce him to their eclectic, open-minded, hard-partying friends. It is from these older kids that Charlie learns to live and love, until a repressed secret from his past threatens to destroy his newfound happiness.
Hoops
by Walter Dean Meyers
A teenage basketball player from Harlem is befriended by a former professional player who, after being forced to quit because of a point shaving scandal, hopes to prevent other young athletes from repeating his mistake.
Adult
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
This classic novel explores themes of justice, empathy, and racial inequality through the eyes of a young girl in the American South.
Lawn Boy: A Novel
by Jonathan Evison
Mike 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.
by Amy Longwell