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Memorial Hall Library

Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2023

This year Banned Books Week is from September 22-28. This is a week for public libraries to highlight challenges made to books and to celebrate our freedom to read these titles. September 28th is Let Freedom Read Day, when we encourage everyone to take at least one action to defend books from censorship. You can read more about that and get suggestions for what actions to take at the Banned Books Week website. Another great way to celebrate your freedom to read is to check out one of the top ten most frequently challenged books of the past year, all of which are available through MHL.

Gender queer / : A Memoir
Gender queer / : A Memoir
by Maia Kobabe

Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
 
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. Then e created Gender Queer. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gayfan fiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: It is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
by George M. Johnson

Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
 
A first book by the prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist shares personal essays that chronicle his childhood, adolescence and college years as a Black queer youth, exploring subjects ranging from gender identity and toxic masculinity to structural marginalization and Black joy. 
This book is gay
This book is gay
by Juno Dawson

Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, sex education, claimed to be sexually explicit
 
A British author of teen fiction offers basic information about the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience, including terms, religious issues, coming out, and sex acts, for people of all orientations, including the merely curious.
The perks of being a wallflower 
by Stephen Chbosky

Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, profanity
 
This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative voice in contemporary fiction. This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular, hilarious, and devastating.
Flamer
Flamer
by Mike Curato
 
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

In the summer between middle school and high school, Aiden Navarro navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and finds himself drawn to Elias, a boy he can't stop thinking about.
The bluest eye : a novel
The bluest eye : a novel
by Toni Morrison
 
Challenged for: rape, incest, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI content
 
A new edition of the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author relates the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes, and the tragedy that results because of her longing to be accepted.
Me and Earl and the dying girl
Me and Earl and the dying girl
by Jesse Andrews

Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity
 
Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia. 
Tricks
Tricks
by Ellen Hopkins

Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs, rape, LGBTQIA+ content
 
Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family, and love.
Let's talk about it : the teen's guide to sex, relationships, and being a human
Let's talk about it : the teen's guide to sex, relationships, and being a human
by Erika Moen
 
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, sex education, LGBTQIA+ content
 
Presented in the accessible style of a graphic novel, a practical guide to adolescence by the creators of the Oh Joy Sex Toy sex-education webcomic shares compassionate and relatable advice on subjects ranging from body image and identity to healthy relationships and safe sex. 
Sold
Sold
by Patricia McCormick

Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, rape
 
When she is tricked by her stepfather and sold into prostitution, thirteen-year-old Lakshmi becomes submerged in a nightmare where her only comfort is the friendship she forms with the other girls, which helps her survive--and eventually escape. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults.