Book Recommendations For Kids & Teens About Protecting the Freedom to Read
Book challenges and bans continue to be on the rise across the country with titles for kids and teens, especially those featuring LGBTQ+ voices and people of color, facing the majority of removal efforts. In addition to amplifying challenged books, we are highlighting titles that tackle these themes—book banning, censorship, and intellectual freedom—and help young readers understand the importance of the right to read freely. From realistic fiction to adventure and fantasy, these books feature kids speaking out and standing up to protect access to knowledge and diverse stories and voices.
Learn more about Books for All at The New York Public Library including our Teen Banned Book Club, unlimited access to book club titles on NYPL’s SimplyE app, plus free programs and events, a free toolkit for you and your community, ways to get involved, and more for all ages.
Kids
The Book Tree
by Paul Czajak; illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh
When young Arlo accidentally drops a book on the Mayor’s head, the Mayor decides books are dangerous and destroys all the books in town! But thanks to Arlo’s imagination and perseverance, the Mayor finds that suppressing stories cannot stop them from blossoming more beautifully than ever.
This Book Is Banned
by Raj Haldar; illustrated by Julia Patton
This is a book about dinosaurs. No it's not. Dinosaurs are not allowed. Oh. This is now a book about avocados! Sorry. We deleted those too. FINE. This book is about—nope! Forbidden! Maybe you shouldn't even try reading this book…But what could possibly be inside? Discover just what can happen when ideas are erased instead of expressed with this hilarious picture book romp that kids (and grown-ups) will want to read over and over again.
Arthur and the Scare-Your-Pants-Off Club
by Marc Brown
When a parent group bans a series of scary books from the local public library, Arthur and his friends devise a plan to get their favorite books returned.
Middle Grade
Property of the Rebel Librarian
by Allison Varnes
Twelve-year-old June Harper, shocked when her parents go on a campaign to clear the Dogwood Middle School library of objectionable books, starts a secret banned books library in an empty locker.
Attack of the Black Rectangles
by Amy Sarig King
When his classroom copy of Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic contains blacked out words, Mac, who was raised to call out things that are wrong, takes a stand against censorship and intolerance.
Ban This Book
by Alan Gratz
A fourth grader fights back when From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg is challenged by a well-meaning parent and taken off the shelves of her school library. Amy Anne is shy and soft-spoken, but don't mess with her when it comes to her favorite book in the whole world. Amy Anne and her lieutenants wage a battle for the books as they start a secret banned books locker library, make up ridiculous reasons to ban every single book in the library to make a point, and take a stand against censorship.
Answers in the Pages
by David Levithan
When his mother rallies other parents to pull the book he’s reading from the district curriculum because it depicts a relationship between two boys, Donovan must speak up and stand out to stop this book from being banned.
The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand
by Jen Swann Downey
Dorrie and her brother Marcus accidently open a portal to Petrarch's Library, where they discover a secret society of warrior librarians who travel in time, protecting the world's greatest thinkers from torture and death for sharing knowledge and ideas.
Also see the sequel: Sword in the Stacks
Ink Girls
by Marieke Nijkamp; illustrated by Sylvia Bi
Set in the Italian Renaissance, two girls from very different walks of life join forces to fight censorship and protect the people they love.
Finally Seen
by Kelly Yang
When 10-year-old Lina Gao steps off the plane in Los Angeles, it’s her first time in America and the first time seeing her parents and her little sister in five years! She’s been waiting for this moment every day while she lived with her grandmother in Beijing, getting teased by kids at school who called her “left behind girl.” As she reckons with her hurt, Lina tries to keep a lid on her feelings, both at home and at school. When her teacher starts facing challenges for her latest book selection, a book that deeply resonates with Lina, it will take all of Lina’s courage and resilience to get over her fear and choose a future where she’s finally seen.
Words on Fire
by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Avoiding the occupying Cossack soldiers who would force everyone to become Russian, a farm girl from Lithuania helps her family preserve her culture, literature and religion when she is forced to leave her parents behind to escape with an important package.
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics
by Chris Grabenstein
Mr. Lemoncello has invited teams from all across America to compete in the first ever Library Olympics...but someone is trying to censor what the kids are reading.
The Library of Ever
by Alexander Zeno
Discovering an ultimate library containing every book in the universe, young Lenora becomes an apprentice librarian and must tap the library's infinite knowledge about missions in space and the future before encountering a dark and destructive force.
Also see the sequel: Rebel in the Library of Ever
Teens
Verify
by Joelle Charbonneau
Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels pride in the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the governor presides. But when her mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world with a history she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country and where the wrong ones can get Meri killed.
Banned Book Club
by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada; art by Ko Hyung-Ju
The gripping true story of a South Korean woman's student days under an authoritarian regime in the early 1980s, and how she defied state censorship through the rebellion of reading.
The Sound of Stars
by Alechia Dow
Planet Earth is occupied by aliens called the Ilori, because human emotional expression is grounds for execution, books, music, and art have all been outlawed, but when an alien finds seventeen-year-old Ellie's secret library it changes things for both of them.
Suggested Reading
by Dave Connis
When the principal at Lupton Academy posts a "prohibited media" hit list, Clara Evans is horrified. Students caught with the contraband will be punished. Clara starts an UnLib—an underground library—in her locker. When one of the books she loves most is connected to a tragedy she never saw coming, Clara is forced to face her role in it.
This Book Won't Burn
by Samira Ahmed
After her dad abruptly abandons her family, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school and plans to keep her head down until she discovers hundreds of books being removed from the library and speaks up to effect change.
Library Wars series
story and art by Kiiro Yumi; original concept by Hiro Arikawa
Iku Kasahara has dreamed of joining the Library Defense Force ever since one of its soldiers stepped in to protect her favorite book from being confiscated in a bookstore, but now that she's a recruit, her dream job is more like a nightmare.
Americus
by M.K. Reed; art by Jonathan Hill
Neal Barton just wants to read in peace. Unluckily for him, some local Christian activists are trying to get his favorite fantasy series banned from the Americus public library on grounds of immoral content and heresy. Something has to be done, and it looks like quiet, shy Neal is going to have to do it. With youth services librarian Charlotte Murphy at his back, Neal finds himself leading the charge to defend the mega-bestselling fantasy series that makes his life worth living.
The Day They Came To Arrest the Book
by Nat Hentoff
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is under attack at George Mason High and school editor Barney Roth knows it is time to print his school's censorship story, but he may be too late.
The List
by Patricia Forde
Letta, charged with collecting and saving words, uncovers a sinister plan to suppress language, robbing the people of Ark of the power of speech, and realizes she must also save the culture, itself.
See also the sequel The Last Lie
Miles Morales: Suspended
by Jason Reynolds; illustrated by Zeke Peña
During Mile's in-school suspension, he finds himself in a fierce battle with a classmate turned insidious termite who is determined to destroy books and the Black and Brown history they contain, and only Miles can stop him.
Rebelwing
by Andrea Tang
Prudence Wu is used to life throwing her some unpleasant surprises—she goes to prep school, after all, and selling banned media across the border in a country with a ruthless corporate government obviously has its risks. But a cybernetic dragon? That's new. She tries to forget about the fact that the only reason she's not in jail is because some sort of robot saved her, and that she's going to have to get a new side job now that enforcers are on to her. So she's not exactly thrilled when Rebelwing shows up again. Even worse, it's become increasingly clear that the rogue machine has imprinted on her permanently, which means she'd better figure out this whole piloting-a-dragon thing—fast. Because Rebelwing just happens to be the ridiculously expensive weapon her government needs in a brewing war with its neighbor, and Pru's the only one who can fly it.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.