2015 Top Ten Most Challenged Books
During National Library Week, the Office for Intellectual Freedom publishes the list of Top Ten Most Challenged Books. We collect information from two sources: newspapers and reports submitted by individuals. All challenges are compiled into a database. Reports of challenges culled from newspapers across the country are compiled in the bimonthly Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom and compiled in the Banned Books Week Resource Guide. Challenges reported to the ALA by individuals are kept confidential. The Top Ten Most Challenged Books is not a national roundup of book challenges as all challenges are not reported to the ALA. Rather, it is a snapshot of the reports received by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Our goal is not to focus on the numbers, but to educate the masses that attempts to ban books is happening within our country, and the themes that are suggested by those challenges. As citizens, librarians, parents, we all should safeguard the right to read freely and to choose for ourselves and allow others to do the same.
And now for the list!
10. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan @loversdiction
9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter
8. Habibi by Craig Thompson
7. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel @AlisonBechdel
6. Holy Bible
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon @mark_haddon
4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin @susankuklin
3. I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings @jessicaherthel @JazzJennings__
2. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James @E_L_James
1. Looking for Alaska by John Green @johngreen
9 comments
I just saw that the 2015 Most Challenged Books list was out, and I had a question about one of the entries: the Bible. Which version(s) of would that be? Or have all versions been challenged?
Looking for Alaska was challenged more often than Fifty Shades of Grey? That’s just crazy.
If the Bible (any version) is banned so should be Shakespeare because he overtly refers to the Bible at several occasions. “One cannot stand in front of students and dance around it; religion is a force with which to contend, especially if Shakespeare is in the literary canon for the year.”
http://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_08.01.09_u
This is the website my quotation comes from. It is not clear if it was included in my previous version
John, it doesn’t seem to have been a specific version (e.g. New Revised Standard or King James). As is often the case with challenges, it was more about the IDEA of the book: it was a religious scripture.
Some of these books i can understand being challenged, but books like the Bible or Looking for Alaska, i don’t understand
There is also the fact that many of the books on this list talk about real issues that kids face today. Some of the books might even be helpful.