Banned Books Week is the annual celebration of our right to read whatever we choose. This year, Banned Books Week runs from September 27 to October 3 and continues a tradition of honoring organizations that fight censorship while also highlighting books that have been challenged. Throughout history, books have been banned by both people in power and ordinary citizens to suppress the ideas inside them. These bans have happened in schools, prisons, and even libraries, and the books range from 1984 by George Orwell to Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. You can find our display of Adult books that have been banned throughout history in the lobby of the library near the New Nonfiction titles. Some of them are included in the list below. We encourage you to check out a book on this list to celebrate your freedom to read!
- Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Beartown by Fredrik Backman
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- I know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Cujo by Stephen King
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides