Banned Books Week runs this year from September 25th through October 1st. This year’s theme is about celebrating diversity! If you’re interested in reading why diversity was picked this year, you might appreciate reading “Why Diverse Books are Commonly Banned,” which mentions that ” ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, has determined that 52% of the books challenged, or banned, over the past decade are from titles that are considered diverse content.” I also appreciated this point of view from an article in Time.
If you’re interested in reading challenged books with diverse content, here is a list of titles. We of course own many of these books, including these selected titles:
- A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
- Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (bonus: we’re reading Alexie’s short story collection Blasphemy for our Low Maintenance Book Club)
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Bless Me, Ultima by Anaya Rudolfo
- Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- Habibi by Craig Thompson
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
- Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
You might also want to check out the 2015 list of the “most challenged” books.