It’s our yearly celebration of banned books! Every September, the American Library Association sponsors Banned Books Week to focus on challenges to books, graphic novels, and other media in American libraries and schools. I disagree with such attempts at censorship and am proud to read banned books, which often contain the most powerful and important ideas.
There were 347 challenges recorded by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom in 2018. Here are the most frequently challenged books (infographic courtesy of the ALA).
I have only read one book on this list, #4: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I wrote about it last year for Banned Books week. It is a wonderful book and I really feel that high schoolers could benefit from reading it. It functions both as a commentary on current events and also as a portrait of contemporary American family life. If you are concerned about its content, try using it to start a conversation, like Starr’s father does with Tupac’s music and “THUG LIFE” concept.
Have you read any of the books from the list? What banned books have impacted your life?
Jedi by Knight 
Captain Underpants??
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Haha, that one is one the list all the time! Crude humor, encourages misbehavior, etc.
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Hearing that The Hate U Give was banned makes me want to read it all the more now, so… I suppose that backfired on the people who banned it, oops.
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I agree! I think a lot of times this is why censorship and banning don’t actually work lol.
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I reckon I might pick it up next time I’m in the library! And I wanna see the movie too! 🙂
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You should! It’s great. I haven’t seen the movie yet either, but I also want to!
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