Recently a coworker asked us to send some of our favorite Banned and Challenged book titles and a little snippet about it and/or why we love it. I emailed her back and said did she want them alphabetically, order of importance or just my favorite? How did I approach it? I thought, send a few favorite author(s), but that was too many. Just every book I read that has been B-and/or-C? Way too many to do. Therefore I said “Make it simple.” And found a list of Banned Books and picked four of my favorites. By no stretch of the imagination is this a completed list, but it is a start. And don’t forget October 5-11, 2025 is Banned Book Week.
Drama by Raina Telgemeier
How can you not love an author who not only speaks to the 10-14 year-old reader, but to the adult reader seeing themselves “back then” or even now. Coming of age never stops, and Telgemeier is a great author to allow that to happen.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
I was an adult when I read Speak. I have never loved or wanted to throw a book so much (except for MAUS). The subject was never talked about when I was growing up, so it was refreshing to have it now. And the writing is so amazing. When the villain whispers into our narrators ear, I was her, standing there, sick to my stomach. It’s even more powerful in the graphic novel!
Maus A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
How can the Holocaust be written about so beautifully? With all the ugliness Spiegelman’s family experienced, he still gives us hope. We also see the after the death camps and how survivor guilt is not just reserved for the victims, but their children, too. And even the somewhat poetic manner of how he writes and illustrates things, does not cover up the harshness of reality.
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson
Love is love and if two male penguins wanted to love, let them! Especially since the zookeepers experimented to give them a real egg to raise and in their own penguin way, love.