Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2015 Revealed in ALA Report

The American Library Association’s 2016 State of America’s Libraries report, which details American library trends of the past year, reveals the 2015 Top Ten List of Most Challenged Books.

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness.

In the report, released Monday, April 11, in recognition of National Library Week, April 10–16, 2016, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) said that it recorded 275 book challenges last year and the number of challenges to remove materials with diverse content was higher than ever.

In July 2015, a Harris poll revealed that 28 percent of 2,244 U.S. adults surveyed felt that certain books should be banned, an increase of more than half since the previous survey in 2011.

According to the report, the top 10 most challenged books of 2015 were:

1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
   Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
   Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
   Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
   Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
6. The Holy Bible
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
   Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
   Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
    Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).

Additional information and infographics regarding the 2015 Top Ten List of Most Challenged Books can be found in the 2016 State of America’s Libraries Report.