Banned on screen
Books that schools keep pulling off the shelf, and the shows that keep handing them to characters.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou, 1969A girl stops speaking after something unspeakable, then finds a voice that could level a building.
BuyLast Night at the Telegraph Club
Malinda Lo, 2021A 1950s teenager hiding who she is from a family that would call it a sin.
BuyLooking for Alaska
John Green, 2005A sheltered kid leaves home, meets the world, and watches every adult in range fail the girl at the center of the story.
BuyOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey, 1962An institution run by a woman who calls cruelty care, and a rebellion that takes the building with it.
BuyThe Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger, 1951Salinger published it in 1951, and Holden Caulfield is sixteen.
BuyA Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle, 1962Meg Murry: awkward, furious, gifted in ways the adults can't measure, and she saves the day by loving someone harder than the villain can hate.
BuyInvisible Man
Ralph Ellison, 1952Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel won the National Book Award the next year, and it was the only novel he published in his lifetime.
BuyThe Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison, 1970Toni Morrison published her first novel in 1970, while she was an editor at Random House raising two sons on her own.
BuyAll Boys Aren't Blue
George M. Johnson, 2020George M. Johnson's 2020 memoir-in-essays about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey.
BuyGender Queer: A Memoir
Maia Kobabe, 2019Kobabe's 2019 memoir about growing up nonbinary and asexual.
BuyPortnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth, 1969Roth's 1969 novel is one long confession from Alexander Portnoy to his psychiatrist, Dr. Spielvogel, who gets the last line.
BuyLady Chatterley's Lover
D. H. Lawrence, 1928Lawrence's 1928 novel about an aristocrat's affair with her gamekeeper, kept out of U.S. stores uncut until a 1959 court ruling let Grove Press publish it.
Buy
Seen one we missed? Add a book and your handle goes on the entry.