• General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

2025 Book Squad Goal: Read a Banned or Challenged Book

Listed below are the adult fiction and non-fiction banned and challenged books according the American Library Association, the organization that compiles the data from library professionals nationwide. There is an even greater number of titles in the age groups, children and young adult, that have received either or both distinctions. According to ALA, the censorship of books surged 65% in 2023 with 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. Nearly half the targeted books contained narratives of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC voices. For more information: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-numbers

Lawrence Public Library

87 items

  • Can We Talk About Race?

    and Other Conversations in An Era of School Resegregation

    Tatum, Beverly Daniel
    BookBoston, Mass. : Beacon Press, c2007. — 378.1012 TATUM B
  • How We Fight White Supremacy

    a Field Guide to Black Resistance

    BookNew York : Nation Books, 2019. — 323.1196 HOW WE F
  • She/he/they/me

    for the Sisters, Misters, and Binary Resisters

    Ryle, Robyn,
    BookNaperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks, Inc., [2019] — 305.3 RYLE R
  • Me and White Supremacy

    Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

    Saad, Layla F.
    BookNapreville, Illinois : Sourcebooks, [2020] — 305.809 SAAD L
  • BookMinneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2014] — 814.6 RANKINE
  • BookNew York : Scribner, c2005. — 362.8209 WALLS J
  • BookNew York : Hill and Wang, c2006. — 940.5318 WIESEL E
  • Caste

    the Origins of Our Discontents

    Wilkerson, Isabel,
    BookNew York : Random House, [2020] — 305.5122 WILKERSO
  • BookNew York, New York : Plume, [2016] — 812.54 WILSON A
  • Stamped From the Beginning

    the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

    Kendi, Ibram X.
    BookNew York : Nation Books, [2016] — 305.8009 KENDI I
  • Heavy

    An American Memoir

    Laymon, Kiese
    BookNew York, NY : Scribner, [2018] — 305.896 LAYMON K
  • Sister Outsider

    Essays and Speeches

    Lorde, Audre
    BookBerkeley : Crossing Press, [2007] — 814.54 LORDE A
  • Hunger

    a Memoir of (my) Body

    Gay, Roxane,
    UnknownNew York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2017] — 306.4613 GAY R
  • White Rage

    the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

    Anderson, Carol (Carol Elaine)
    BookNew York : Bloomsbury USA, 2016. — 305.8009 ANDERSON