Banned Book Madness 2025

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Starting Monday, February 17, pick up a free copy of one of the featured books from Monday through Wednesday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. in 2120 Tawes Hall.

The list of books in 2025 has been divided into four "regions," or reasons why the books were banned.

Southern Division: "Sexually Explicit" Content, Drugs & Alcohol, Books Inappropriate for Certain Age Groups

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur
3. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
6. In The Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
7. Push by Sapphire
8. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
9. Normal People by Sally Rooney
10. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
11. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
12. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
13. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
14. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
15. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
16. Metamorphoses by Ovid

Western Division: Anti-Religious/Occult/Supernatural Themes

1. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
2. Paradise Lost by John Milton
3. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
4. Animal Farm by George Orwell
5. Fahrenheit 451 by Rad Bradbury
6. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
7. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz
8. Habibi by Craig Thompson
9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
11. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
12. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
13. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
14. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle
15. Bridge to Terabithia by James Paterson
16. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar

Midwest Division: Erasure of Ethnic Stories + Incendiary and Inaccurate Political Themes

1. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
2. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
3. Maus by Art Spiegelman
4. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika I. Sanchez
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson
7. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
8. The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
9. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
10. Sold by Patricia McCormick
11. Forest of Noise by Mosab Ahu Toha
12. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
13. A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird
14. Capital by Karl Marx
15. Don Quixote by Miguel de Carvantes Saavedra
16. Night by Elie Wiesel

Eastern Division: LGBTQIA+ Content

1. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
2. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
3. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
4. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
5. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
6. Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
7. Flamer by Mike Curato
8. Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
9. The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
10. The Dressmaker by Jen Wang
11. Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out by Susan Kulkin
12. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
13. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
14. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
15. Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
16. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden