Historically Challenged or Banned Books

1) 1984

Author

Orwell, George

Series

Oberon Modern Plays

Formats:

eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Playaway Pre-Loaded Audiobook Player

Description

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75th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

"Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power."—The New Yorker

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger

...

2) The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian

Author

Alexie, Sherman

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

3) The adventures of Captain Underpants now in full color: the first epic novel

Author

Pilkey, Dav

Series

Captain Underpants volume 1

Description

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When George and Harold hypnotize their principal into thinking that he is the superhero Captain Underpants, he leads them to the lair of the nefarious Dr. Diaper, where they must defeat his evil robot henchmen.

4) The adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author

Twain, Mark

Series

Bantam classic

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Sound Disc

Description

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Huck, in flight from his murderous father, and Jim, in flight from slavery, pilot their raft down the Mississippi River in search of freedom.

5) The adventures of Super Diaper Baby

Author

Beard, George [Dav Pilkey]

Series

Super diaper baby volume 1

Description

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Irrepressible friends George and Harold create a new comic book superhero, Super Diaper Baby.

6) All American boys

Author

Reynolds, Jason

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.

7) All boys aren't blue: a memoir-manifesto

Author

Johnson, George M

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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A first book by the prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist shares personal essays that chronicle his childhood, adolescence and college years as a Black queer youth, exploring subjects ranging from gender identity and toxic masculinity to structural marginalization and Black joy.

8) Almost Perfect

Author

Katcher, Brian

Formats:

eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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This winner of the first Stonewall Award for Children’s & Young Adult Literature will make you marvel at the beauty of human connection and the irrepressible nature of love.

Everyone has that one line they swear they’ll never cross, the one thing they say they’ll never do. We draw the line. Maybe we even believe it.

Sage Hendricks was my line.

Logan Witherspoon...

9) And Tango makes three

Author

Richardson, Justin

Description

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At New York City's Central Park Zoo, two male penguins fall in love and start a family by taking turns sitting on an abandoned egg until it hatches.

10) The awakening

Author

Chopin, Kate

Series

Dover thrift editions

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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In the summer of her 28th year, Edna Pontellier and her children, along with the wives and families of other prospective businessmen, spend the summer in an idyllic coastal community away from their husbands and the sweltering heat of 1890s' New Orleans. Aware of deep yearnings that are unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood, Edna plunges into an illicit liaison that reawakens her long dormant desires, inflames her heart, and eventually blinds her...

11) Bad kitty

Author

Bruel, Nick

Series

Bad Kitty (Picture books) volume 1

Notes

The entire Bad Kitty Series has been challenged.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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When a kitty discovers there is no cat food in the house, she decides to become very, very bad.

12) Beloved: a novel

Author

Morrison, Toni

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. After the Civil War ends, Sethe longingly recalls the two-year-old daughter whom she killed when threatened with recapture...

13) Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out

Author

Kuklin, Susan

Formats:

eBook, Kindle

Description

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A 2015 Stonewall Honor Book
A groundbreaking work of LGBT literature takes an honest look at the life, love, and struggles of transgender teens.
Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs,

...

14) Bless Me, Ultima

Author

Anaya, Rudolfo

Formats:

eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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This coming-of-age classic from "one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists" follows a young boy as he questions his faith and beliefs after a curandera woman introduces herbs and magic into his life (Denver Post).
Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family...

15) The bluest eye

Author

Morrison, Toni

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Relates the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes, and the tragedy that results from her longing to be accepted.

16) Bone: tall tales

Author

Smith, Jeff

Series

Bone (Jeff Smith)

Notes

The entire Bone series by Jeff Smith has been challenged.

Description

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Smiley entertains the Bone Scouts by telling them stories about the suspect adventures of the mighty explorer Big Johnson Bone before his discovery of the Rolling Bone River and establishment of a famous trading post.

17) Brave new world

Author

Huxley, Aldous

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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This classic novel of a perfectly engineered society is “one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the twentieth century” (The Wall Street Journal).

Half a millennium from now, in the World State, the watchword is that every one belongs to every one else. No matter what class of human you are bred to be—from the intellectual Alphas to the Epsilons who provide the manual labor—you are...

18) Burned

Author

Hopkins, Ellen

Series

Burned

Description

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Raised in a stern, abusive Mormon household, a teenage girl starts to question her religion and struggles to find her destiny. Her father is abusive, her mother is submissive, and her church looks the other way. Confused and angry, Pattyn Von Stratten acts out and is sent to live with an aunt on a Nevada ranch. She finds the love and acceptance she craves, with disturbing consequences.

19) The catcher in the rye

Author

Salinger, J. D

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Holden Caulfield, knowing he is to be expelled from school, decides to leave early. He spends three days in New York City and tells the story of what he did and suffered there.

20) A child called "it": one child's courage to survive

Author

Pelzer, David J

Series

David Pelzer trilogy volume 1

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle, Sound Disc

Description

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Tells the story of a child's abuse at the hands of his alcoholic mother