Here are top 10 most challenged books last year. An Idaho school board already banned some
The Nampa School District school board voted on Monday to permanently remove 23 books from district libraries after board trustees deemed the books to contain too much sexual content — despite an incomplete review of the books and district recommendations to pull some of the titles off the “challenged books” list.
The list of removed books was created following a school board meeting in January, when a parent spoke about concerns over “pornographic” books available in the district’s school libraries.
“There’s definitely a chilling effect on free speech and First Amendment rights of accessibility to all types of literature out there,” Huda Shaltry, Idaho Library Association legislative chair, told the Idaho Statesman Wednesday.
The decision prompted one local bookstore to set up a display with all of the books that the Nampa School District removed.
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The Nampa school board’s decision follows a national trend over the years of banning books that caused controversy. The American Library Association tracked 729 challenged books in school and public libraries in 2021, the most since the association began keeping track of challenged books in 2001.
“We support individual parents’ choices concerning their child’s reading and believe that parents should not have those choices dictated by others,” ALA president Patricia Wong said in an April press release. “Young people need to have access to a variety of books from which they can learn about different perspectives.”
Of the 729 challenged books, here are the top 10 most challenged books in 2021, according to the ALA. Many of them were banned over LGBTQIA content or content considered too sexually explicit. Book titles in bold were banned by the Nampa School District this week:
“Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe;
“Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Envision;
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson;
“Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez;
“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas;
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie;
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” by Jesse Andrews;
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison;
“This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson;
“Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin.
Pulling books from shelves isn’t new to the Treasure Valley. The West Ada School District pulled John Green’s New York Times bestselling book “Looking for Alaska” from middle school libraries in 2018 after a parent said the book contained profanity and references to smoking and suicide.
Language in the Nampa School District’s motion to remove the books included the word “forever,” which made some trustees uneasy. Many books that were once challenged and removed from school libraries across the country, such as “The Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, are now taught in schools nationwide.
The school board trustees’ decision not to wait for recommendations from the district is a cause for concern for the rest of the state, Shaltry told the Statesman.
“We all have processes and everything in place for books for reconsideration, and I’m worried that some places will just remove them without going through that due process,” Shaltry said.
Here is the list of books that the Nampa School District has banned from its shelves:
- “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini;
- “Leah on the Offbeat” by Becky Albertalli;
- “The Prince and the Dressmaker” by Jen Wang;
- “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher;
- “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater;
- “Drama” by Raina Telgemeier;
- “Looking for Alaska” by John Green;
- “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison;
- “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood;
- “L8r, g8r” by Lauren Myracle;
- “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez;
- “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky;
- “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins;
- “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie;
- “City of Heavenly Fire” and “Clockwork Princess” by Cassandra Clare;
- “Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell;
- “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer;
- “Sold” by Patricia McCormick;
- “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson;
- “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp;
- “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas;
- “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie H. Harris.
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