NYC Banned Books Challenge: Fight Book Banning By Reading Banned Books
The New York Public Library is building on its efforts to combat recent trends in nationwide book bans and challenges by teaming up with Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Public Library to present a new initiative: the NYC Banned Books Challenge. We’re challenging New Yorkers to read a selection of 10 books that represent voices, identities, and perspectives that book banning threatens to erase.
The American Library Association (ALA) recently announced that it tracked an “unprecedented” number of challenges to library, school, and university materials in 2021: 729 challenges to 1,597 individual books. This is more than double the challenges tracked in 2019, and the books being challenged often focus on race, LGBTQ+ issues, religion, and history. As providers of free and open access to all information and all perspectives, public libraries have a clear role to play in fighting such censorship.
Getting Started
To get the city started, we’re making one of the recommended books—popular YA title and 2021 National Book Award winner Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo—available to cardholders with no waits via our free e-reader app, SimplyE, on iOS and Android through June 26.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club—a Penguin Random House title that explores issues of race and sexuality—has been the subject of such book banning efforts, including in Texas earlier this year. The story focuses on Lily Hu, a teenager living in 1950s Chinatown, who falls in love with another woman in an environment not friendly to LGBTQ relationships. Her romance, along with red-scare paranoia, create a high-stakes situation that could cost Lily’s father his citizenship.
Are You Up for the Challenge?
Check out the 10 books recommended by our librarians below: read them, talk about them, share with your community. There are of course many more books that have faced bans or challenges, but we hope these help get you started.
NYC Banned Books Challenge
The Marrow Thieves
by Cherie Dimaline
In a world where most people have lost the ability to dream, a fifteen-year-old Indigenous boy who is still able to dream struggles for survival against an army of "recruiters" who seek to steal his marrow and return dreams to the rest of the world.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
by John Green & David Levithan
When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other's best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.
Being Jazz
by Jazz Jennings
At the age of five, Jazz Jennings transitioned to life as a girl, with the support of her parents. In her remarkable memoir, Jazz reflects on her incredible journey—high-profile interviews, a documentary, the launch of her YouTube channel, a picture book, and her own reality TV series—and learning to navigate the physical, social, and emotional upheavals of adolescence complicated by the unique challenges of being a transgender teen.
All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto
by George M. Johnson
A prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist shares personal essays that chronicle his childhood, adolescence, and college years as a Black queer youth, exploring subjects ranging from gender identity and toxic masculinity to structural marginalization and Black joy.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
A history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted from the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
by Malinda Lo
When Lily realizes she has feelings for a girl in her math class, it threatens Lily's oldest friendships and even her father's citizenship status and eventually, Lily must decide if owning her truth is worth everything she has ever known.
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
The story of Pecola Breedlove profiles an eleven-year-old African American girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes and the tragedy that results from her longing to be accepted.
1984
by George Orwell
Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching.
Out of Darkness
by Ashley Hope Pérez
Loosely based on a school explosion that took place in New London, Texas, in 1937, this is the story of two teenagers: Naomi, who is Mexican, and Wash, who is black, and their dealings with race, segregation, love, and the forces that destroy people.
This One Summer
by Mariko Tamaki; illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Rose's latest summer at a beach lake house is overshadowed by her parents' constant arguments, her younger friend's secret sorrows, and the dangerous activities of older teens.
The Library’s role is to make sure no perspective, no idea, no identity is erased. We remain dedicated to connecting New Yorkers with books that are not only enjoyable, but can help readers develop deeper understanding and greater empathy—the very tools needed to fight ignorance and hate.
Learn more about NYC Banned Books Challenge.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.