We're proud to continue the fight against censorship and spotlight banned books.
We're inspired by this list of the 100 most popular banned and challenged books in circulation at Queens Public Library during the past decade.
These stories will open your mind to new perspectives, cultures, surroundings, and beyond. Perfect for inquisitive readers, they don’t shy away from the truth—in fact, they get right to it, with humor, heart, wisdom, and suspense.
Click on the links below to learn more about these books and borrow them online and from your local QPL branch, including copies in several international languages!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (Adult)
Book | eBook | Spanish
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Korean | Spanish
Feed by M.T. Anderson (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | French | Russian
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (Beatrice Sparks) (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Spanish
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (Adult)
eBook | Russian
City of Thieves by David Benioff (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | French Audiobook | Korean | Polish | Russian | Spanish | Spanish Audiobook
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Polish
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | French | Italian | Spanish
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Bulgarian | Chinese | Hungarian | Italian | Korean | Malayalam | Russian | Spanish | Ukrainian | Urdu
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Korean | Polish | Russian | Spanish
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney (Young Adult)
Book | Russian
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Class Act by Jerry Craft (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
New Kid by Jerry Craft (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Spanish
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | French
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Adult)
Book | Authorized Edition | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Korean | Polish | Russian | Spanish
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Graphic Novel eBook | Chinese | Dutch | French | German | Korean | Russian | Spanish | Spanish Graphic Novel | Yiddish
Melissa (previously published as George) by Alex Gino (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Hebrew | Korean | Russian | Spanish | Urdu
Ground Zero by Alan Gratz (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Albanian | Korean | Russian | Spanish
Looking for Alaska by John Green (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Hebrew | Italian
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Italian | Polish | Russian
I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel & Jazz Jennings (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Spanish
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Russian | Spanish
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Chinese | French | Gujarati | Hebrew | Korean | Russian | Spanish | Ukrainian
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Hebrew
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Graphic Novel eBook | Chinese | Korean | Polish |Russian | Spanish
Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson (Children’s)
Book | eBook
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (Young Adult)
Book | Audiobook
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish eBook
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Polish | Russian | Spanish | Ukrainian
Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Lily the Thief by Janne Kukkonen (Children’s)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Chinese | French | Hebrew | Italian | Korean | Latin | Polish | Russian | Serbian | Spanish
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Graphic Novel eBook | Hebrew | Serbian | Spanish | Thai
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Proxy by Alex London (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Sold by Patricia McCormick (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Spanish | Spanish eBook
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Arabic | Chinese | Italian | Korean | Polish | Spanish
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (Children’s)
Book | Audiobook | Hebrew | Korean | Polish | Russian | Spanish
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | French | Spanish
Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman (Children’s)
Book | eBook
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (Adult)
Book | eBook | Russian
1984 by George Orwell (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | French | Hebrew | Italian | Korean | Malayalam | Polish | Spanish
White Bird: A Wonder Story by R.J. Palacio (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Graphic Novel eBook | Spanish Graphic Novel
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Korean | Russian eBook | Spanish
The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Polish | Spanish
A Child Called “It”: One Child's Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Italian | Spanish
This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman & Kristyna Litten (Children’s)
Book | eBook
A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Graphic Novel | Graphic Novel eBook
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Children's)
Book | eBook
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry Cole (Children's)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (Adult)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Arabic | Chinese | French | Hebrew | Italian | Japanese | Korean | Spanish
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | French
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Chinese | Hebrew | Spanish
Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU
by Cory Silverberg & Fiona Smyth (Children’s)
Book | eBook
Bone: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith (Children’s)
The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith (Children’s)
Book | eBook
Maus by Art Spiegelman (Young Adult)
Book | Korean | Spanish
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | French | Korean | Polish | Russian
Dear Martin by Nic Stone (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Drama by Raina Telgemeier (Children’s)
Book | eBook | French | Spanish
Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: A Modern Graphic Retelling of Little Women
by Rey Terciero & Bre Indigo (Children’s)
Book | eBook
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Spanish | Turkish
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan (Young Adult)
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Russian
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Adult)
Book | eBook | Chinese | French | Korean
Go With the Flow by Lily Williams & Karen Schneemann (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Children’s)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Spanish
Native Son by Richard Wright (Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook
American Street by Ibi Zoboi (Young Adult)
Book | eBook
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Young Adult)
Book | eBook | Audiobook | Chinese | Italian | Korean | Persian | Russian | Spanish
