Banned along with more than 80 books by the Arizona State Legislature in 2012 with the passing of AZ HB 2281 which effectively eliminated any and all forms of Mexican-American Studies curriculum by which officials insisted that they are not “banning books;” rather, they are “improving the program” by confiscating books.
Source: Rodriguez, Roberto Cintli, "Arizona's 'Banned' Mexican American Books", The Guardian, 18 Jan. 2012. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/arizona-banned-mexican-american-books

"Poignant . . . Powerful . . . Beautifully captures the threshold experience of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a memory." --The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez's beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father's role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home--and not at home--in America. Julia Alvarez's new novel, Afterlife, is available now.

Banned from the Johnston County school library system after a parent complained about sexual content and profane language.

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2014.

On a deserted mountain road in the Dominican Republic in 1960, three young women from a pious Catholic family were assassinated after visiting their husbands who had been jailed as suspected rebel leaders. The Mirabal sisters, thus martyred, became mythical figures in their country, where they are known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies). Three decades later, Julia Alvarez, daughter of the Dominican Republic and author of the acclaimed How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, brings the Mirabal sisters back to life in this extraordinary novel. Each of the sisters speaks in her own voice; beginning as young girls in the 1940s, their stories vary from hair ribbons to gun-running to prison torture. Their story is framed by their surviving sister who tells her own tale of suffering and dedication to the memory of Las Mariposas. This inspired portrait of four women is a haunting statement about the human cost of political oppression, and is destined to take its place alongside Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Allende's The House of the Spirits as one of the great 20th-century Latin American novels.

Banned from the Paul D Schreiber High School curriculum in New York in 2000 because the book has a drawing of a homemade bomb. Neither the text nor the drawing have instructions or diagrams on how to build one.

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2014.

From "one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists" comes a coming-of-age classic and the bestselling Chicano novel of all time that follows a young boy as he questions his faith and beliefs -- now one of PBS's "100 Great American Reads" (Denver Post). Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past--a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world... and will nurture the birth of his soul.

Banned from Stanislaus County Schools as well as in various schools districts in California, Utah, Colorado and Texas for profanity, depictions of the occult, and vulgar language.
Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2014.

A bind-up of the first two books in V.C. Andrews's classic Flowers in the Attic series, an international phenomenon! Read the first two books in the chilling Flowers in the Attic saga, which has been enjoyed by millions of teens and adults for more thirty years! In Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind, Chris, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie had the perfect lives--until a tragic accident changed everything. Now they are trapped in their grandparents' attic, waiting for Momma to figure out what to do next. As the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, the unspeakable horrors that plagued them are rivaled only by the sinful jealousies that begin to rise...

Removed from Georgia's Oconee County school libraries in 1994 due to the "filthiness of the material." The schoolboard voted to rescind the banning order, only to vote again to reinstate it.
Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant.

From 1983 to the present, the book has been challenged and banned in libraries and school districts, mainly for its sexually explicit content.

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of gina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.

Banned by the U.S. Postmaster until a successful challenge in 1930 against the Comstock Act, which up to that point, prohibited mailing obscene material.

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

First published in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader is unable to forget its images and its forecast. With more than two million copies in print, it is Margaret Atwood's most popular and compelling novel. Set in the near future, it describes life in what once was the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead. Reacting to social unrest, and a sharply declining birthrate, the new regime has reverted to -- even gone beyond -- the repressive tolerance of the original Puritans. Offred is a Handmaid who may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant because she is only valued as long as her ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now. Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

Banned in many school districts because of depictions of sex and violence. The Judson school district board overruled Superintendent's Ed Lyman's decision to ban the book from the district's AP English curriculum after a single parent's complaint that the book was "offensive to Christians" and was "sexually explicit."

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

An all-absorbing journey into man's possible past. Jean M. Auel, a storytelling genius, weaves a compellingly readable saga of human survival; an epic that transcends time and place. It is peopled with rich and complex characters who experience the full range of human emotions. All this makes for total involvement and believability in the light of today. A novel for all time.

Banned from the Cascade Middle School library in Eugene, Oregon after a parent complained about a rape scene.

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

In this third and long-awaited novel in the acclaimed Earth's Children "TM" series, Ayla, the independent heroine of The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses, sets out from the valley on Whinney, the horse she tamed. With her is Jondalar, the tall, handsome, yellow-haired man she nursed back to health and came to love. Together they meet the Mamutoi -- the Mammoth Hunters -- people like Ayla. But to Ayla, who was raised by the Clan of the Cave Bear, they are "the Others." She approaches them with mixed feelings of fear and curiosity.

Talut, a powerful bear of a man with bright red hair, a booming laugh, and a gentle heart, and his tall, dark-haired sister, Tulie, are the leaders of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi. It is here that Ayla finds her first women friends, but some among the Mamutoi dislike Ayla because she was raised by "flatheads," their name for the people of the Clan. Ayla is haunted by her memories of the Clan because Rydag, a child of mixed parentage living with the Mamutoi, bears so strong a resemblance to her own son, Durc.

It is the Mamutoi master carver of ivory dark-skinned Ranec, flirtatious, artistic, magnetic -- who fascinates Ayla. She finds herself drawn to him. Because of her uncanny control over animals, her healing skills, and the magic firestone she discovered, Ayla is adopted into the Mammoth Hearth by Mamut, the ancient shaman of the Great Earth Mother.

Ayla finds herself torn between her strong feelings for Ranec and her powerful love for the wildly jealous and unsure Jondalar. It is not until after the great mammoth hunt, when Ayla's life is threatened, that a fateful decision is made.

Set in the challenging terrain of Ice Age Europe that millions of Jean M. Auel readers have come to treasure, The Mammoth Hunters is an epic novel of love, knowledge, jealousy, and hard choices -- a novel certain to garner Jean M. Auel even greater acclaim as a master storyteller of the dawn of humanity.

Challenged, but retained in Moorpark High School's reading lists, despite objections that the book contains "hard-core graphic sexual content."

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

The best-selling author of the Earth's Children series continues the epic story of Ayla, the mythical heroine of Ice Age Europe. The Plains of Passage takes Ayla and the brave Jondolar on a dangerous cross-continental odyssey in search of that place they call home.

Challenged, but retained in Moorpark High School's reading lists, despite objections that the book contains "hard-core graphic sexual content."

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

This unforgettable odyssey into the distant past carries us back to the awesome mysteries of the exotic, primeval world of The Clan of the Cave Bear, and to Ayla, now grown into a beautiful and courageous young woman. Cruelly cast out by the new leader of the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla leaves those she loves behind and travels alone through a stark, open land filled with dangerous animals but few people, searching for the Others, tall and fair like herself. The short summer gives her little time to look, and when she finds a sheltered valley with a herd of hardy steppe horses, she decides to stay and prepare for the long glacial winter ahead. Living with the Clan has taught Ayla many skills but not real hunting. She finally knows she can survive when she traps a horse, which gives her meat and a warm pelt for the winter, but fate has bestowed a greater gift, an orphaned foal with whom she develops a unique kinship. One winter extends to more; she discovers a way to make fire more quickly and a wounded cave lion cub joins her unusual family, but her beloved animals don't fulfill her restless need for human companionship. Then she hears the sound of a man screaming in pain. She saves tall, handsome Jondalar, who brings her a language to speak and an awakening of love and desire, but Ayla is torn between her fear of leaving her valley and her hope of living with her own kind.

Challenged in the Bastrop (TX) Public Library system in 1985 on the premise that the book "violates Texas obscenity laws." Also banned from the Stroudsburgh HS Library that same year, because it was "blatantly graphic, pornographic, and wholly unacceptable for a high school library."

Source: Doyle, Robert P., Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read, American Library Association, 2017.

Winner of the 1999 Independent Publisher Book Award for Creative Non-fiction/Memoir in the US'In this book, full of Martin Espada's intelligence and heart, poetry emerges as passionate artistic practice, and essays as acts of tough-minded engagement.' Adrienne RichIn his first collection of essays, award-winning poet Martin Espada turns his fierce critical eye toward a broad range of urgent political and cultural issues. With the same insight and integrity displayed in his poetry, Espada chronicles many struggles of the Latino community: the backlash against Latino immigrants and the Spanish language, the borders of racism, and U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.

Banned by Tucson Unified School District as part of a wider abolishment of the district's Mexican American Studies program.

Source: Reddington, Pete. “Martín Espada's Book Banned in Tucson.” Valley Advocate, H.S. Gere and Sons, Inc., 9 Feb. 2012, https://valleyadvocate.com/2012/02/09/martn-espadas-book-banned-in-tucson.

A modern classic of manhood, marginalization, survival, and transcendence--and a lyrical memoir of coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem.  "A report from the guts and heart of a submerged population group ... It claims our attention and emotional response." --The New York Times Book Review Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating memoir. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery--a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop. As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author's voice.

Banned from the middle school library by order of Queens Community School Board 1250. The appeal to keep this book banned was upheld in court by President’s Council Dist. 25 v. Community School Board. It was also one of nine books banned by the Island Trees Free School District until the ban was successfully challenged and overturned in 1982 by the U.S. Supreme Court (Island Trees School District v. Pico). The reasons given were the book was considered “immoral, anti-American, anti-Christian and just plain filthy.” (NY)

Source: Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. American Library Association, 2014.

"This bilingual edition of Zoot Suit combines the original English-language version with the first-ever Spanish translation of the critically acclaimed play by Luis Valdez, a work that cracked open the depiction of Chicanos on the stage, challenging viewers to revisit a troubled moment in our nation's history. From the moment the myth-infused character of El Pachuco burst onto the stage, literally cutting his way through the drop curtain with a switchblade, Luis Valdez spurred a revolution in Chicano theater." "Focusing on the events surrounding the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial of 1942 and the ensuing Zoot Suit Riots that turned Los Angeles into a bloody war zone, this is a gritty and vivid depiction of the horrifying violence and racism suffered by young Mexican Americans on the home front during World War II. Valdez's cadre of young urban characters struggle with the stereotypes and generalizations of America's dominant culture, the questions of assimilation and patriotism, and a desire to rebel against the mainstream pressures that threaten to wipe them out." "Experimenting with brash forms of narration, pop culture of the war era, and complex characterizations, this quintessential exploration of the Mexican-American experience in the United States during the 1940s was the first, and only, Chicano play to open on Broadway."--BOOK JACKET.

Banned by the Tucson Unified School District as part of a wider abolishment of the district's Mexican American Studies program (HB 2281, 2012).

Source: Stephenson, Hank. “What Arizona's 2010 Ban on Ethnic Studies Could Mean for the Fight over Critical Race Theory.” Politico, 11 July 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/07/11/tucson-unified-school-districts-mexican-american-studies-program-498926.

A timeless story rediscovered by each new generation, The Diary of a Young Girl stands without peer. This graphic edition remains faithful to the original, while the stunning illustrations interpret and add layers of visual meaning and immediacy to this classic work of Holocaust literature. For both young readers and adults The Diary continues to capture the remarkable spirit of Anne Frank, who for a time survived the worst horror the modern world has seen--and who remained triumphantly and heartbreakingly human throughout her ordeal.   Includes extensive quotations directly from the definitive edition; adapted by Ari Folman, illustrated by David Polonsky, and authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel.

Banned from the Keller Independent School District (TX) in 2022.

Source: Davis, Wynne. “The Bible Is Among Dozens of Books Removed from This Texas School District.” NPR.org, NPR, 18 Aug. 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1117708153/bible-anne-frank-books-banned-texas-school-district.