According to the American Library Association, in 2022 a record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship—that's a 38% increase in challenges compared to 2021. If you believe that books should challenge readers and not the other way around, here are ways you can support challenge/banned books and their authors:
- Read, discuss, and recommend them (see our list below and check out the ALA's annual Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists)
- Donate to organizations like The National Coalition Against Censorship, The American Library Association, The Freedom to Read Foundation, and PEN America
- Contact your local library & school board to express your support for access to diverse and inclusive books
- Vote in local & national elections for representatives who support freedom of expression
If you want to learn more, check out ALA's data on book banning.
If you want to do more, visit the ALA's Fight Censorship resource page or Unite Against Book Bans Action Toolkit.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss.
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist •
Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • Double finalist for the Lambda
“O'Brien has written a vital, important book—a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in Iran during the revolution has for twenty years been a classroom staple, a feminist manifesto, and one of the most popular and widely known graphic novels of all time.
Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
- Winner of the 2013 Hugo award for Best Graphic Story
- When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. From New York Times bestselling writer Brian K.
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here.
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.
A New York Times Bestseller!
Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and MSNBC feature stories
8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best · William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller!
"Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds
The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender!
Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU.
This crucial, empowering, #1 New York Times bestselling exploration of racism—and antiracism—in America makes critical ideas accessible for teen readers, adapted from Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning.
This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature.
The groundbreaking National Book Award Finalist and Michael L. Printz Honor Book with more than 3.5 million copies sold, Speak is a bestselling modern classic about consent, healing, and finding your voice.
A New York Times bestseller
A 2015 Caldecott Honor Book
A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book
An Eisner Award Winner
In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal–winning classic, twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community.
BE WHO YOU ARE.
When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.
Melissa thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. Melissa really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte.
2016 Winner of the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction
2016 ALA Stonewall Book Award, Honor Book
2016 ALA Notable Children's Book
Fully and fearlessly updated, this vital new edition of the acclaimed book on sex, sexuality, bodies, and puberty deserves a spot in every family’s library.
From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile, Sisters, and Guts!
Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon over Mississippi, she can't really sing.
And Tango Makes Three is the bestselling, heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family.
At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same.
A Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company Original World Premiere Production
A NEW YORK TIMES and #1 INDIEBOUND BEST SELLER
American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom's Top 10 Most Challenged Books
A Little Free Library Action Book Club Selection
National Parenting Product Award Winner (NAPPA)
From the acclaimed author-artist Maurice Sendak comes a Caldecott Honor-winning tale of a fantastical dream world. This comic fantasy will delight readers of all ages with playful illustrations and an imaginative world only Sendak could create.