Have you ever wondered why so many award-winning authors and their novels are targeted by the same individuals or special interest groups? Sometimes instead of actually reading a novel, they scan the page for certain words or themes and write them down keeping track of how many times these particular words/themes are mentioned.

I don’t know if there is a limit or zero tolerance. What I do know is that many excellent books are being challenged or banned by words taken out of context.

Keep an open mind when you read, and don’t read to search for profanity or LGBTQIA+ references. Read to try to understand the plot and the characters.

This month we are recommending ten books that have been recently challenged or banned. Do you see any recurring themes that explain why these books were targeted?

1984 by George Orwell is the most banned book of all time. It’s especially important and relevant today because of the levels of misinformation on social media and by the media. Most of us have read it a few times, but another reading may be in order.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is the story of fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura who runs away from home to escape his Oedipal curse and the story of Satoru Nakata, and elderly disabled man with the uncanny ability to talk to cats. The stories are told in alternating chapters. In 2019, this book was challenged by a politician who found it on her son’s International Baccalaureate reading list because of alleged violence and sexually explicit passages. Maine State Representative Amy Arata introduced a bill giving power to prosecutors to charge teachers and school administrators with a felony for sharing similar books with students punishable by fines or jail time. A legislative committee unanimously rejected the bill.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin – This groundbreaking work addresses the lives, loves, and struggles of transgender teens. Author and photographer Susan Kuklin interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral teens to create realistic portrayals of their individual journeys through the process of coming out and coming to terms with family, friends, and an often-hostile world. Each person’s story is unique and different because of family dynamics, living situations, and genders. This book received criticism because the author is cisgender and many wondered if she guided the questions to get the results she expected. It has been challenged and banned for LGBTQIA+ content and discussions about gender transitioning.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins along with her novel, Tricks, has been banned for depictions of drug use and sexually explicit passages along with nineteen other titles by the Rockwell Independent School District in Texas. No review process was followed and there has been no formal request for reconsideration. Crank chronicles the Author’s daughter’s addiction to crystal meth while in high school. It is required reading in many high schools and drug court programs. Written in free verse, Hopkins’ novels are recognized for their strong anti-drug messages.

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas has been banned by several school districts because of allegedly sexually explicit passages. It’s a fantasy about a woman named Feyre with magical powers who must come to grips with the consequences of using those powers to save the man she is to marry and his people.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Some people warn we are being pushed toward a society that would accept women being used as human incubators as their sole reason for existence. This book has been challenged and removed from several school libraries because of sexual content, offensive language, and concerns about age appropriateness; however it has never been banned by any state.

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison – This book has been challenged and banned because of LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and sexual references. It is a semi-autobiographical coming of age novel that tells the story of Mike Muñoz, a Mexican American youth struggling to overcome the hardships he has endured since birth in order to find his true self.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic By Alison Bechdel has been challenged and banned because of LGBTQIA+ content. It’s the story of Bechdel’s relationship with her father. After coming out in college, Bechdel later discovered that her father, an English teacher, and funeral home director, was gay. A few weeks later he died leaving her to search for answers to the many mysteries surrounding her father’s life.

Beloved by Toni Morrison – People who ban books love to disparage anything by Toni Morrison, even this Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a dysfunctional family of formerly enslaved people living in a Cincinnati house that’s haunted by a malevolent spirit. The narrative of this story comes from the life of Margaret Garner an enslaved person from the slave state of Kentucky who escaped and fled to the free state of Ohio in 1859. While U.S. Marshalls were attempting to enter the cabin she was living in, Garner attempted to kill her children to spare them being returned to slavery. She managed to kill her youngest child before being captured. A story about Garner inspired Morrison’s novel.

The Sandman Volume 2, The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman – During a ritual of passage to manhood, the story of the tragic love between Dream (Morpheus the Endless) and Queen Nada is shared by an older man to the younger man. Nada fears the consequences of loving an immortal and as punishment for spurning his affections, Dream sends her to hell. While Dream’s androgynous sibling Desire plots with their twin Despair against Dream. Morpheus the Endless must journey to hell to right the 10,000-year-old injustice. This graphic novel was challenged as unsuitable for certain age groups. It has been labeled pornographic by some groups. Gaiman claims he has become resigned to these attacks on his work.