Because many book challenges are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press, the Top Most Challenged Books lists and data compiled by ALA represent only a snapshot of book challenges. A challenge to a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in the collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from the library.
Read my Banned Books Week kick-off post here.
Below are books four through six of the top ten most challenged books of 2023 with their Book Résumés.
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Number of challenges: 68
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, profanity
Excerpts from the Book Résumé:
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, profanity
The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.
A years-long #1 New York Times bestseller, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and Best Book for Reluctant Readers, and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or “wallflowers” of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.
RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES
RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES
AUTHOR STATEMENT
“This book is my love letter and wish for every kid who is struggling with identity, because at the time I was writing it, I was struggling with my own.”—Stephen Chbosky
“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes out ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”—Stephen Chbosky
*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES
A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.
5. Flamer by Mike Curato
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Excerpts from the Book Résumé:
I know I’m not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They’re mean, and scary, and they’re always destroying something or saying something dumb or both.
I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe.
It's the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone's going through changes—but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can't stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.
RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES
Wentzville School District: The book is relatable to many teenagers, the targeted audience, in that many and all go through many of the same struggles that the main character goes through in this book. From self-esteem, sexuality, peer pressure, bullying and issues and at home, we see the struggles he has and can put ourselves in their shoes and relate. Knowing there is a positive outcome in the end shows to others relating to these struggles that there is hope and we can get through it.
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Statement of Support: Flamer is an award-winning graphic novel that tells the story of Aiden Navarro “as he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.” This graphic novel is just one of many books currently being challenged for relaying a story from one of the LGBTQ+ perspectives.
As with many challenges targeting LGBTQ+ graphic novels, those surrounding Flamer falsely accuse the book of being pornography or containing explicit sexual images. In 2022, a parent from Katy ISD filed a criminal complaint that the district was providing material harmful to minors. Though the claim was found unsubstantiated, the book was removed from the shelves and relocated to the police department, where it could be processed. This challenge demonstrates the growing trend of citizens attempting to ignore the proper review process and intimidate educators, librarians, and administrators. Flamer has been challenged across the country and was included on the “Krause List” as a book to remove.
Eanes Westlake School District (Austin, TX): The decision was made to keep this book in the middle school libraries with a Young Adult (YA) label that will allow 8th grade parents to opt out of the book and 6th and 7th grade parents to opt into the book beginning in the 2023-24 school year. As early as elementary school, some of our students begin to question their sexual orientation. LGBTQ+ students deserve to have access to books about their fears, struggles and inner turmoil about life, friendship, love and identity just like any hetero normative child. Due to some of the content and themes and the fact that the book contains profanity, sexual references and suicidal ideation, it may not be suited or of interest for all middle school students, including younger middle school students.
Westport Connecticut Rationale: Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice; be appropriate to the varied interests, abilities, and levels of maturity of students in form, structure, and content; be based upon critical review in educational and professional journals, in current periodicals, or through professional analysis.
*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES
A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.
Read the full Book Résumé here.
Read the full Book Résumé here.
6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Challenged for: rape, incest, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI content
In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an eleven-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES
Students sued when a school district restricted several books. The school board reinstated one novel (2022)
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