LibGuides: Banned Books Week - October 1 – 7, 2023: Home (2024)

FAQs

What is the #1 most banned book of all time? ›

What Is the Most Banned Book in America? For all time, the most frequently banned book is 1984 by George Orwell. (How very Orwellian!) The most banned and challenged book for 2020 was George by Alex Gino.

Some school districts aimed to ban the book from schools because they believed the book has unsuitable topics for children to read about. One major complaints was that the story portrayed talking animals that can communicate and act just like humans.

1. Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins, 33 bans.

CHICAGO – The American Library Association has announced the theme for Banned Books Week 2023: “Let Freedom Read!” Banned Books Week will take place October 1 – 7, 2023.

There were concerns over the violence and increasingly dark tone of the later books but most of the censorship attempts were for religious reasons. It was also banned in some Christian schools in the UK.

According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed. Sales estimates for other printed religious texts include at least 800 million copies for the Qur'an and 190 million copies for the Book of Mormon.

Fun fact: Green Eggs and Ham was once banned in the People's Republic of China for its "portrayal of early Marxism"

From the time of its publication in 1947 until 1972, the book was "banned" by the New York Public Library due to the then-head children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore's hatred of the book.

Alleged racist content has been the reason most often cited for banning or challenging Huck Finn, particularly since 1957 and the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States.

This is the list of the most banned books in the first part of the 2022-2023 school year, according to the PEN America Index of School Book Bans. Gender Queer: A Memoir remained at the top of the list, as it was in the 2021-2022 school year, joined this time by Flamer.

What is the most offensive book in the world? ›

It's arguable that Salman Rushdie wrote the most controversial book of all time. The Satanic Verses, first published in 1988, is partly based on the story of the life of the prophet Mohammad. The book, considered by many followers of Islam to be incredibly offensive on multiple fronts, angered Muslims around the world.

The book's impact continues: today, the book has sold roughly 14 million copies. Did you know…? But not everyone was initially on board. In fact, in many communities The Grapes of Wrath was banned and burned, both for its occasional obscene language and its general themes.

The "Captain Underpants" books are among the American Library Association's list of the top 100 most banned and challenged books from the past decade, due to complaints from parents about violent imagery.

As The Banned Books Project points out, there have been “different reasons for the book being banned, including religious objections, hom*osexuality, violence, African history, rape, incest, drug abuse, explicit language, and sexual scenes.” The bans and challenges to The Color Purple, as we know, have nothing to do ...

So, why was "The Catcher in the Rye" banned? For plenty of reasons. Critical readers have accused it of being blasphemous, racist, misogynist, and ableist. Many parents have worried that the overwhelmingly negative content of Caulfield's stream of consciousness will be a bad influence on their children.

The banning and censoring of the Bible has a long and multifaceted history that continues to this day, and although it is not typically included within popular lists of banned books, it is safe to assert that the Bible is the most banned and censored book in history.

Orwell's “1984” was challenged for its pro-communist and sexually explicit content, alongside other subversive and dystopian stories such as Orwell's “Animal Farm” and Alduous Huxley's “Brave New World,” but has since become known as one of the most significant rationalizations for freedom of speech and expression.