Web of Lies: Banned Books 2024

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling and award winning author Sherman Alexie tells the heartbreaking yet funny story about a boy living on the Spokane Indian Reservation who wants to break free of the life he was destined to live.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: sexual content

And Tango Makes Three is the bestselling, heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: LGBTG+ content

A boy comes to terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen - then at university he finds his wings as a drag artist, The Black Flamingo.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: BIPOC and LGBTQ+

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.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Assault, EDI content, Sexually Explicit

A 10-year-old boy's life changes when he makes a surprising new friendship with a newcomer to his rural town.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Language and Mental Health

When Wesley Boone writes a poem for his high school English class, some of his classmates clamor to read their poems aloud too.

Reason for Challenges and Ban: Concerns about a teacher's ability to teach, BIPOC

Young Charlie Bucket can't believe his luck when he finds the very last of Mr. Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets inside his chocolate bar.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Racism

Danger and betrayal, love and loss, secrets and enchantment are woven together in the breathtaking finale to the #1 New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices Trilogy, prequel to the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content, Offensive Language, Religious Beliefs

The Color Purple writes a message of healing, forgiveness, self-discovery, and sisterhood to a new generation of readers.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content, Offensive Language, Religion, BIPOC and Violence

The seductive and stunning #1 bestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas's spellbinding A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content

The sexy, action-packed first book in the #1 bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses series from global phenomenon Sarah J. Maas.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content

The epic third novel in the #1 bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses series by global phenomenon Sarah J. Maas.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: War and Sexual Content

In Crank, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank."

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Drugs, Offensive Language, and Sexually Explicit

A modern classic--both poignant and funny--about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Profanity, Religious References, Mental Health

Here is the dreamy and bittersweet story of a family divided by politics and geography by the Cuban revolution.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content

An irreverent and irresistible New York Times bestselling romance between the so-called Designated Ugly Fat Friend and the Hot Jock.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Harsh Language and Sexual Content

Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Language and Sexual Content

There are so many different types of families, and THE FAMILY BOOK celebrates them all in a funny, silly, and reassuring way.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+

In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+ and Graphic Images

BE WHO YOU ARE. When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Language and LGBTQ+

This moving parable for all ages offers a touching interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Sexist Content, Unhealthy Relationships, Environmental Exploitation

A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Profanity, Runaways, Drugs, Sexual Content and Sexual Assault

In Margaret Atwood's dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Offensive Language, Anti-Religion, Violence, Sexual Content, Political, LGBTQ+

Every day can be an adventure if you just look carefully enough!

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Bad Behavior

In this seventh and final book, Harry discovers what fate truly has in store for him as he inexorably makes his way to that final meeting with Voldemort.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Witchcraft and Magic, Anti-Family, Violence, Lying, Cheating, Stealing, and Satanism.

Harry Potter is midway through his training as a wizard and his coming of age.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Witchcraft and Magic, Anti-Family, Violence, Lying, Cheating, Stealing, and Satanism.

As the Harry Potter series draws to a close, Harry's greatest adventure yet is just beginning.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Witchcraft and magic, Anti-family, Lying, Cheating, Stealing and Satanism

For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Witchcraft and Magic, Anti-Family, Violence, Lying, Cheating, Stealing, and Satanism.

Illustrated by Diana Souza Tenth Anniversary re-issue of the classic children's story that tells the simple and straightforward tale of a little girl called Heather and her upbringing by two lesbian mothers.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Anti-Family, LGBTQ+

Philip Pullman takes readers to a world where humans have animal familiars and where parallel universes are within reach.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Ant-Religious Content

Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Race, Sexuality, Violence

In dynamic words and pictures, award-winning author Robert Burleigh and Caldecott Honor-artist Stephen T. Johnson capture the energy and passion that electrifies every moment in a game of hoops.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Derogatory Remarks, BIPOC, and Sexual Content

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Violence, Anti-Ethic, Anti-Family, Offensive Language.

This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing--often all at once.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content, Offensive Language, LGBTQ+

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: BIPOC

King & King is a contemporary tale about finding true love and living happily ever after, sure to woo readers of any age.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant,

In this sequel to the acclaimed Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda --now a major motion picture, Love, Simon --we follow Simon's BFF Leah as she grapples with changing friendships, first love, and senior year angst.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: LGBTQ+

Celebrated author-illustrator Jeanette Winter weaves a hopeful tale of one woman's courageous book rescue.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Violence, "Promotes" Another Religion Besides Christianity

Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). After. Nothing is ever the same

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Sexual Content, Profanity, Hazing, Under Age Drinking, Mental Health

Celebrate Earth Day with Dr. Seuss and the Lorax in this classic picture book about sustainability and protecting the environment!

Reason for Challenge or Ban: Environmentalist agenda

A Newbery Medal winning modern classic about a racially divided small town and a boy who runs.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Profanity

It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he's figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad?

Reasons for Challenges and Ban: Sexual Content, Obscenity, Vulgar Language

This New York Times bestselling novel from acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers tells the story of Steve Harmon, a teenage boy in juvenile detention and on trial.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: BIPOC, Racial Injustice, Profanity, Sexual Content

Various people at a backyard picnic offer their comments on a young girl's tightly curled, nappy hair.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: BIPOC

New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Critical Race Theory, Racism

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Racial Violence, Sexual Content, Objective Sensitive Material, Discomfort

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: Humanizes Victims of Abuse, Sexual Content

Eye-catching foil stamping, glittering on every page, offers instant child-appeal, but it is the universal message at the heart of this simple story about a beautiful fish, who learns to make friends by sharing his most prized possessions, that gives the book its lasting value.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Promotes Socialism, Collectivist Values

The story of one African-American family fighting to stay together and strong in the face of brutal racist attacks, illness, poverty, and betrayal in the Deep South of the 1930s.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Racism, Explicit Language, BIPOC

Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers deals with questions about juvenile detention facilities, gang life, and friendship.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: BIPOC, Offensive Language

Newly turned vampire Bree Tanner lives in terror -- and must find her way out of untold danger -- in this pulse-pounding novella, a companion to Eclipse.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Language, Sexual Content

The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+, BIPOC, Sexual Content

The first ten lies they tell you in high school. "Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say."

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Political Viewpoint, Sexual Content, Sensitive Language, Biased Against Male Students.

You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: Suicide, Sexual Content, Violence, Sexual Assault, Offensive Language, Drugs

Rose and her parents have been going to Awago Beach since she was a little girl. It's her summer getaway, her refuge.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: LGBTQ+, Offensive Language, Drugs, Inappropriate Topics, Inappropriate Illustration

Two Boys Kissing follows Harry and Craig, two seventeen-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+, Sexual Content, Language

Tyrell is a young African-American teen who can't get a break. He's living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: LGBTQ+, Profanity, BIPOC

Jacob Janowski's luck had run out--orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: Sexual Content and Abuse

Max, a wild and naughty boy, is sent to bed without his supper by his exhausted mother. In his room, he imagines sailing far away to a land of Wild Things. Instead of eating him, the Wild Things make Max their king.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Child Abuse, Witchcraft, Psychologically Damaging

In her most powerfully moving novel since Speak, award-winning author, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's struggle, her painful path to recovery, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the most important thing of all—hope.

Reasons for Challenge or Ban: Language, Sexual Content

Late one night, three otherworldly creatures appear and sweep Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe away on a mission to save Mr. Murry, who has gone missing while doing top-secret work for the government.

Reason for Challenges or Ban: Religious Element

A graphic novel based on the life and death of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, an eleven-year-old gang member from Chicago's Southside who was killed by his own gang members. 1994. This gritty exploration of youth gang life will force readers to question their own understandings of good and bad, right and wrong.

Reasons for Challenges or Ban: Gangs, BIPOC