dailynewsnblog
Objections rise from issues like sexual content and profanity or racial slurs and stereotypes. PEN America counted 6,870 bans across 23 states in the 2024-2025 school year.
Since 1982, the American Library Association has used Banned Books Week to draw attention to books that have been challenged or removed from schools and libraries.
Objections vary widely, from sexual content and profanity to racial slurs and stereotypes.
PEN America, a free-expression advocacy organization, counted 6,870 bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts in the 2024-2025 school year.
Can you tell from the plot alone which of these books have been banned?
1 of
This retelling of a well-known classic tells the story of two roommates learning magic at a university. The two couldn’t be more different. One is bubbly, blond and popular, while the other is independent, solitary and green, a fact that makes her classmates constantly ridicule her.
2 of
This 1960s picture-book presents itself as an Chinese folktale. When an older brother falls down a well, his younger brother’s race to get help is slowed by the older boy’s fantastically long name: Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.
3 of
This novel opens with the famous line: “Many years later, in front of the firing squad, colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon his father took him to discover ice.” The intergenerational novel blends magical realism with love, family conflict and political upheaval to create a vivid portrait of Colombian life and history.
4 of
In this novel, a young Englishman ignores his father’s warnings and sets out to sea. After surviving a shipwreck, he becomes stranded on an island off the coast of South America. After many years, he rescues a man, whom he renames Friday and makes his servant.
5 of
Told in brief, interconnected vignettes, this novel follows a young Latina growing up in a Chicago neighborhood. She confronts economic hardship and the expectations placed on women and girls.
6 of
This debut novel is the first in a series following an orphan boy accepted into a magical school. He learns about the dark wizard who killed his parents and tried to kill him, too. Although this wizard is believed to be dead, there are many who fear he might return, and some who think his allies remain within the school itself.
7 of
Set in a 1930s Southern town, this coming-of-age novel follows a young girl whose lawyer father defends a Black man falsely accused of a terrible crime. The trial exposes the town’s racism and the injustices of its legal system.
Your results
Have you read these books?
The reasons books are removed vary widely, which makes them hard to predict.
