Banned books I’ll keep recommending

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's slim sci-fi/fantasy novel revolves around a fireman who hates his job set in the saddest of dystopian settings: a future with no books. Firemen start the fires in Bradbury's future, to burn any and all books as they are found. One of these books is the Bible, which is what most often triggers the censorship. The book has been repeatedly banned over the years, which is ironic, given that the book itself is about book-banning. When it was published, Bradbury was outspoken about the fact that he in fact had the growing influence of television over Americans in mind when he wrote it.

Selected Poems

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, poet laureate of Illinois, and the first Black woman to serve as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. This is a compelling selection of standout poems from her first three collections, as well as some new poems. She offers insightful and illuminating portraits of Black Americans with her spare style and energetic warmth.

The House of Spirits

by Isabel Allende

Gorgeous writing, magical realism, forbidden love, and political drama. This Latin-American classic has it all. Fall in love with the Trueba family, from the passionate patriarch Esteban, to the revolutionary granddaughter Alba. History impacts each family member as they navigate tragedy and hope. Powerful female characters shine in this absorbing multigenerational saga. The backstory on this novel: it was rejected numerous times before one Spanish publisher said YES, then it went on to become an instant bestseller.

Check, Please!

by Ngozi Ukazu

Originally published as a webcomic, this delightful graphic memoir follows Eric Bittle, a freshman on a college hockey team. It’s a coming of age and coming out of the closet story where everything goes right. Eric’s a baker, vlogger, and figure skating champion who played co-ed hockey at his Georgia high school. The Samwell University hockey team is quite the level up. Eric is figuring out how to be an integral part of a team, while adjusting to the demands of college. The answer involves baking a whole lot of pie. He’s also figuring out what to make of his feelings for the enigmatic team captain Jack. The illustrations add a lot to the story, with hockey hijinks and pranks adding a comedic factor.

The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas

At age 16, Starr Carter has lost two close friends to gun violence: one in a drive-by; one shot by a cop. The latter is the focus of this novel: Starr is in the passenger seat when her friend Khalil is fatally shot by a police officer. She is the sole witness. Thomas seamlessly blends current events with lower-stakes themes common to teens everywhere, with great success. Fun fact: the title comes from a Tupac lyric. Publication date: February 28.

Drama: A Graphic Novel

by Raina Telgemeier

My stage manager teen adored this colorful graphic novel about a middle school theater geek who’s determined to put on a broadway-worthy stage production. If only she could sing—but, alas, she turns to set design instead. Wrangling the stage crew proves difficult, however, and when actors enter the picture, off-stage drama threatens to upstage the whole show. The cast and crew overcome major crushes, slow ticket sales, and a tight budget to create a production they can be proud of. This Stonewall Honor recipient has faced multiple bans for featuring LGBTQ+ characters.

Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

From the publisher: "Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of 20th-century African-American life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching - yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. After a brief prologue, the story begins with a terrifying experience from the hero's high-school days; it then moves quickly to the campus of a 'Southern Negro college' and then to New York's Harlem. The many people that the hero meets in the course of his wanderings are remarkably various, complex and significant. With them he becomes involved in an amazing series of adventures, in which he is sometimes befriended but more often deceived and betrayed - as much by himself and his own illusions as by the duplicity and the blindness of others. Invisible Man is not only a great triumph of storytelling and characterization; it is a profound and uncompromising interpretation of the anomalous position of blacks in American society."

Front Desk

by Kelly Yang

I recommended this effervescent middle grade novel to Gina House in WSIRN Episode 261: Huggable comfort reads for a cozy reading season. Ten-year-old Mia Tang spends most of her after school hours managing the front desk of a motel, where her family lives and works. The Tang family isn’t just cleaning the rooms… they’re also sneaking in other immigrant families and allowing them to stay in empty rooms for free. If Mr. Yao, the owner, finds out about this secret, it spells trouble for everyone. If Mia’s mom finds out about her secret, will it also mean trouble for Mia? While the characters deal with hard things, Yang grounds her story in love, friendship, and hope. In the last few years, parents challenged Front Desk, objecting to its depictions of race. This resulted in multiple school curriculum and read-aloud bans.

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

From the publisher: "Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing."

New Kid

by Jerry Craft

Based on his own experiences as a young Black teen, Craft wrote and illustrated this Newbery winning graphic novel about Jordan Banks, an artistic seventh grader who struggles to fit in at his brand new, prestigious prep school. My kids loved reading about Jordan’s journey to find a place for himself among his nearly all white peer group. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, smart, and insightful. Craft was befuddled upon hearing his book was banned for espousing critical race theory, saying: “I just wanted to have [Black] kids where the biggest dilemma in their life is if they wanted to play PlayStation or Xbox, or what movie they wanted to go see, you know, as opposed to always having the weight of the world.”

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

by Geraldine Brooks

From the publisher: "Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a 'year of wonders.'"

Slaughterhouse-Five

by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut’s famously weird war novel made multiple appearances on What Should I Read Next, as early as Episode 4: Reading as escape, hating lots of books, and finding new fiction and as recently as Episode 327: Brilliant books that ask big questions. It’s one of the most frequently banned books in American classrooms due to sexual content, violence, and obscene language. Vonnegut responded to several of the bannings, writing: “If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.” Vonnegut’s novel follows WWII veteran Billy Pilgrim who gets “unstuck in time,” taking the reader along on a journey of flashbacks, time travel, and life on another planet. The events of the novel, while strange and darkly humorous, are based on Vonnegut’s own war service and present a deeply unsettling picture of combat PTSD.

Educated: A Memoir

by Tara Westover

In this memoir, Tara Westover tells of how she overcame her oppressive childhood: her survivalist family lived in the mountains of rural Idaho and practiced extreme fundamentalist Mormonism; her father's manic depression was undiagnosed and untreated. There was no question that Tara would marry and settle near her family to raise a family of her own, but she found a way out. I picked this up because readers with great taste told me it was a great example of the genre.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

by Marjane Satrapi

In her graphic memoir Marjane Satrapi weaves her bittersweet coming of age story together with the history of Iran. After witnessing a change in regimes, the clash between her life in public and her home life comes as a perplexing alteration to childhood as she had known it. Persepolis introduces us to the cost of the Islamic Revolution through her own eyes.

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

L’Engle begins her groundbreaking science fiction/fantasy work with the famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night,” and plunges you headlong into the world of the Murray family, who must travel through time to save the universe. I wanted to be Meg, of course. Wrinkle is the first—and most famous—of the Time Quintet, but I read them all, again and again.

Montana 1948

by Larry Watson

This book took me by surprise. In this quiet and timely page turner, a man recounts the tumultuous events of his 12th year, back in his small hometown of Bentrock, Montana. The story begins with the death of his beloved Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier; even as a 12-year-old he can see her death is suspicious, and he fears the blame lies at his family's door. I wasn't initially inclined to pick this up, but my husband urged me to read it. I'm glad he did. (Listen to me recommend this to Chelsey and Curtis as a couples read on episode 164 of What Should I Read Next.)

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald's classic was the topic of my first high school term paper—and despite that, I still love it. Fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby has built a mansion on Long Island Sound for the sole purpose of wooing and winning his lost love Daisy Buchanan, who married another man while Gatsby was serving overseas. This classic American novel captures the Jazz Age in all its decadence and excess, while weaving a wistful story of love and loss. Even if you've seen the movie (especially if you've seen the movie) you need to read the book. The Audible version, narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal, was an Audie Award Finalist.

The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

Acevedo's first novel-in-verse won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Xiomara finds her voice as she pours her soul into her notebook. Every frustration, every harassment, every triumph and every secret is turned into a poem. When she gets invited to share her work in slam poetry club, Xiomara isn't sure if she can keep her passion secret from her strict family. But she soon learns that speaking up and living her truth is the only way to be fully herself.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

In the first of her six autobiographies, Angelou tells the haunting story of her childhood in the American South of the 1930s. Her poetic prose is incredible, and the story is by turns heartwarming ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") and utterly heartbreaking. Angelou's lilting voice brings her powerful, touching story to life in the audiobook.

You Should See Me in a Crown

by Leah Johnson

Johnson makes a triumphant debut with her happy and poignant YA novel. Orchestra geek Liz Lighty stays out of the spotlight in small town Campbell, Indiana, and she's totally okay with her wallflower status. She has a plan to escape the Midwest and become a doctor, and it all starts with attending her elite dream school, Pennington College. When her financial aid package falls short, Liz is devastated until she remembers that her school offers a large scholarship for the prom king and queen each year. Reluctant to subject herself to extra attention but eager to win the money, Liz enters the competition for prom queen. The smart and funny new girl in school makes events leading up to prom more bearable, but Mack is also vying for the prom queen title. As Liz develops feelings for her, the competition gets complicated.

Banned books I’ll keep recommending

a gateway

to reliable joy this summer

Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th