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Each year, the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom records hundreds of attempts by individuals and groups to have books removed from libraries shelves and from classrooms.
The titles below represent banned or challenged books on that list.
For more information see:
Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 2010-2019 | Banned Books
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
10. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
11. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
12. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
13. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
14. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
15. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
16. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
17. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
19. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
20. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
21. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
22. Native Son, by Richard Wright
23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
24. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
25. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
26. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
27. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
28. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
29. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
30. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
31. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
32. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
33. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
34. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
35. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
36. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
37. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
38. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
39. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
40. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
41. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
42. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
43. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
44. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
45. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
46. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the country. We compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools. The top ten most challenged books of 2024 include:
1. All Boys Aren't Blue, by George M. Johnson
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit
2. Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit
3. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Reason: depictions of sexual assault and incest, sexually explicit, EDI content
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit, depictions of sexual assault and drug use, profanity
5. Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: sexually explicit
6. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Reasons: sexually explicit
7. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews
Reasons: sexually explicit, profanity
8. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: sexually explicit, depiction of drug use
9. Sold, by Patricia McCormick
Reasons: sexually explicit, depiction of sexual assault
10. Flamer, by Mike Curato
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit