Dare to Read Banned Books: A Subversive Booklist

Posted On: Sep 30, 2012 In: Book Lists, Teen Zone

Every year, hundreds of books are challenged or banned from public and school libraries. Many of these are young adult titles we have in the Teen Zone, including everything ranging from classics to contemporary favorites. For Banned Book at Lawrence Public Library, we’re celebrating the right to read, so check out one of these books that have topped the list of challenged books over the last ten years!

  Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.

 

 

  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Author’s memoir of growing up black in the 1930′s and 1940′s.

 

 

  Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

A fifteen-year-old drug user chronicles her daily struggle to escape the pull of the drug world.

 

 

  Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

Presents a world of jealousy and betrayal at an exclusive private school in Manhattan.

 

 

 Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school’s less popular students.

 

 

  The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky

A coming of age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems, but also with the suicide of his best friend.

 

 

 The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school.

 

 

 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man’s struggle for justice.