Celebrate Your Freedom to Read - Borrow. Read. Repeat.

Banned Books Week is September 27^th-October 3^rd and we’re celebrating our freedom to read books that push boundaries and challenge us to think outside our comfort zones.

Want to help? Here’s what you can do to fight censorship, keep books available in libraries, and promote the freedom to read!

Get Involved.

Adult:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Challenged for vulgar language and sexual content.

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, and eBook Editions.

Also Available as a Graphic Novel: The Handmaid’s Tale (Graphic Novel).

Also Available in Spanish: El cuento de la criada.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Click to Watch the Hulu Series Season 3 Trailer.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Challenged for offensive language, unsuited to age group, and violence.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, and eBook Editions.

Also Available as a Graphic Novel: The Kite Runner Graphic Novel).

Also Available in Spanish: Cometas en el cielo.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Challenged for sexually explicit content, unsuited for age group, and containing controversial issues.

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Challenged for offensive language, religious viewpoints, and unsuited for age group.

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he hates the color yellow.

The improbable story of Christopher’s quest as he investigates the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for a captivating and unusual story.

Available in Trade Paperback, Hardcover, and eBook Editions.

Also Available in Spanish: El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Challenged for being too graphic for nonfiction.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Click for a Teacher’s Guide.

Kids and Teens:

I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings; Illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas

Challenged for sexual content, issues of bullying, rebelling against police, and refusing to take medications.

The story of a transgender child based on the real-life experience of Jazz Jennings, who has become a spokesperson for transkids everywhere.

From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn’t feel like herself in boys’ clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz’s story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.

Available in Hardcover and eBook Editions.

**Also Available for Teens: Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen.**

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Challenged for LGBTQIA+ content being distributed to kids at a public library.

Based on true events—and narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS—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. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teens dealing with universal questions of love, identity, and belonging.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Challenged for sexual content and vulgar language.

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

Click to Watch the Hulu Series Trailer.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Challenged for sexual content.

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might die. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself–a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

Click to Watch the Netflix Series Trailer.

Audio:

The Harry Potter Series

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling; Read by Jim Dale

Banned for referring to witchcraft and containing actual curses and spells.

Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That’s because he’s being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he’s really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to attend an infamous school for wizards, and he begins to discover some clues about his illustrious birthright. From the surprising way he is greeted by a lovable giant, to the unique curriculum and colorful faculty at his unusual school, Harry finds himself drawn deep inside a mystical world he never knew existed and closer to his own noble destiny.