These are the most challenged & banned books in America right now
by David April 29, 2023 · Gay News / Gay Pride / Gay Rights / LGBTQ Nation
Author: Greg Owen
The American Library Association (ALA) is out with their latest list of the most banned and challenged books, a dubious honor accorded books in library collections in the United States enduring the highest number of attempted bans and demands for censorship.
The list is aggregated by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom from reports filed by library professionals and community members, as well as from news stories published throughout the U.S.
Because many book challenges go unreported, the ALA Banned and Challenged Book List is only a snapshot. The organization says a challenge to a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in a collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from a library.
The most recent list covers bans and challenges in 2022. ALA documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources last year, the highest number of attempted book bans since the group began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 challenges reported in 2021.
A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship.
Seven of the top 13 most challenged books contained LGBTQ+ themes and/or characters, including the most challenged title, author Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. The graphic novel/memoir faced 151 formal calls for censorship in libraries across the country. Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay rounds out the list with 48 formal challenges.
“Every book ban that removes the books that reflect the authentic experiences of gay, queer, and transgender teens and adults from the shelves of a school or public library is an act of erasure, a message to those students that they don’t belong to the community, that their voices don’t matter,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told LGBTQ Nation.
“We hear almost daily from students how much it means to find their lives and experiences reflected in the library’s materials — and the pain they feel when their very identity is called obscene. No young person should feel that pain.”
She encouraged students, parents and allies fighting censorship to join initiatives like ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans.
The following is a list of 2022’s most challenged books — with some ties among the Top 10 — and the reasons ALA cited for censorship.
1. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe (2019)
Number of challenges: 151
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
The graphic memoir, illustrated by Kobabe, explores the author’s experience of being nonbinary and includes some confusing and graphic sexual encounters. It has been the most challenged book in the U.S. for two years, and according to free speech group PEN America, it has been banned in 56 school districts.
2. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (2020)
Number of challenges: 86
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
In a series of essays the author describes as a “memoir-manifesto,” Johnson recalls growing up Black and queer in New Jersey and Virginia.
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)
Number of challenges: 73
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, Equality/Diversity/Inclusion (EDI) content, claimed to be sexually explicit
The Bluest Eye is the first novel by Toni Morrison, published in 1970, and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola growing up after the Great Depression.
4. Flamer by Mike Curato (2020)
Number of challenges: 62
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Curato’s debut Young Adult (YA) graphic novel draws on his own experiences in telling the story of a gay, 14-year-old Filipino-American boy at Boy Scout camp.
5. (Tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green (2005)
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
This coming-of-age novel centers on a high school student named Miles Halter who attends boarding school and becomes fascinated by a girl named Alaska.
5. (Tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
This YA bestseller is set in the early 1990s and follows an introvert through freshman year in a suburban high school.
7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison (2018)
Number of challenges: 54
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Lawn Boy is Evison’s semi-autobiographical, YA coming-of-age novel about a young Mexican American in a period of self-discovery.
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2007)
Number of challenges: 52
Challenged for: profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
This first-person narrative is told from the perspective of a Native American teen, Arnold Spirit Jr., as he struggles to fulfill the promise he’s shown as a budding cartoonist.
9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez (2015)
Number of challenges: 50
Challenged for: depictions of abuse, claimed to be sexually explicit
This historical YA novel chronicles the romance between a Mexican-American girl and an African-American boy in 1930s New London, Texas.
10. (Tie) A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (2016)
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit
This is the second novel in a YA fantasy series following the author’s A Court of Thorns and Roses.
10. (Tie) Crank by Ellen Hopkins (2004)
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: drug use, claimed to be sexually explicit
The title refers to crystal methamphetamine and chronicles in part the struggles of the author’s own daughter with the highly-addictive and ruinous street drug.
10. (Tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (2012)
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
Andrews’ debut novel tells the story of Greg, a high school senior and budding filmmaker, and his relationships with his best friend Earl, and the dying girl who affects them both profoundly.
10. (tie) This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, providing sexual education, claimed to be sexually explicit
YA author Juno Dawson shares an unvarnished, and funny, look at what it’s like to grow up LGBTQ+.
Actual Story on LGBTQ Nation
Author: Greg Owen
