Since 1982, the American Library Association has been celebrating our freedom to read with its annual Banned Books Week, commemorated each fall. Now, as the organization Unite Against Banned Books gears up for the second annual Right to Read Day on April 8, defenders of literature and freedom of speech have another occasion to organize and challenge the increasing surge of book bans across US school districts and libraries. There are many reasons that books get banned, but no matter the genre, these voices and points of view deserve to be heard. Here are just a few of my favorite—and frequently banned—listens.
Angie Thomas's stunning debut is a #1 New York Times bestseller, an Audible Essential, and the basis of an acclaimed 2018 film starring Amandla Stenberg. The Hate U Give centers around 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses the fatal shooting of her best friend Khalil, innocent and unarmed, when they’re stopped by a police officer one night. Hall of Fame narrator Bahni Turpin gives voice to the extensive cast of characters in Starr’s community with distinctiveness, but it is her narration of Starr as she is transformed by grief and disillusionment that is most heart-wrenching. As the media vilifies Khalil and the police cover up the real story, Starr feels immense pressure as the only person who knows the truth.
When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl. Melissa thinks she’ll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. Melissa really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part... because she's a boy. With the help of her best friend, Kelly, Melissa comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte—but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.
A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement? Written in tandem by award-winning authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, this tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father risks everything to defend a Black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops—a major infraction in high-school society—so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it's not so comfortable in her head, either—there's something banging around in there that she doesn't want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won't go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can't be silent—she must speak the truth.
A gripping vision of society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale has become one of the most powerful and popular novels of our time—and also one of the most banned. While it is set in a dystopian world built around the systematic subjugation of women, the central experience and internal musings of the protagonist feel very relevant today. The incongruous experience of being a feminist who doesn't want to forfeit one's femininity is amplified by the complex and richly imagined world that Margaret Atwood creates. It's an illuminating experience each time one encounters it, particularly when listening to this version, which stars Claire Danes in an Audie Award-winning performance.
Jazz Jennings won hearts and changed minds in her first Barbara Walters interview at age six. Her intimate memoir, Being Jazz, reflects on her journey and life as a teen activist and one of the most prominent voices in the national discussion about gender identity. In her own words and voice, Jennings shares her very public transgender journey as she inspires people to accept the differences in others while they embrace their own truths.
Khaled Hosseini’s critically acclaimed novel focuses on the friendship between two boys growing up together in Kabul. Though raised in the same household, Amir and Hassan come from two very different worlds. Amir is the son of a wealthy man; Hassan is the child of Amir’s father’s servant. Set against the backdrop of a country in unrest, The Kite Runner tells the story of the enduring power of friendship against class and racial divides, the passing of time, and physical distance. Even after he and his father flee the country, Amir finds it difficult to start a new life in California when his friend Hassan has been left behind. This compelling listen is made even more captivating by the author’s narration of his own work.
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove—a Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Before his groundbreaking How to Be an Antiracist, author Ibram X. Kendi won acclaim for Stamped from the Beginning, which details how deeply racism is embedded in American thought, past and present. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You is a remix of his National Book Award-winning book tailored to younger listeners. Providing an eye-opening introduction to the history of racism and antiracism in America, this is an essential listen for white Americans of all ages who are still new to the topic and want to learn how to recognize and undo their own racist thought patterns
Award-winning writer and activist George M. Johnson narrates his own memoir about growing up queer and Black, coming to understand his identity at a young age, and experiencing romance and sex in adolescence and into his college years. While a deeply personal story, All Boys Aren't Blue is an important reflection on gender and identity, and navigating toxic masculinity and racism in order to find love, happiness, and self-acceptance.
Despite frequently showing up on banned-book lists for its frank depiction of teen sexuality, Judy Blume's Forever has resonated with generations of readers for pretty much the same reason since it was first published in 1975. Now, the groundbreaking novel has a fresh audiobook treatment starring Tony-nominated performer Caitlin Kinnunen and an introduction read by Blume herself. Is there a difference between first love and true love? And what does "forever" mean, anyway? Forever explores these questions and more in Blume's perennially popular, never-condescending style.
Winner of the ALA Alex Award and the Stonewall-Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award, this bestselling graphic novel is brought to life in audio by an acclaimed cast of talented performers. Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, charts eir journey of self-identity in Gender Queer, an intensely cathartic autobiography that includes grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fan fiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Named the most banned book in the country in 2023, Gender Queer is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
One of the most acclaimed novels of all time, George Orwell's 1984 delves into themes of censorship while also having been repeatedly challenged itself for both social and political themes as well as sexual content. The novel follows Ministry of Truth worker Winston Smith, who lives in a dystopian Britain known as Airstrip One, where Big Brother is always watching and no one can hide. Now more relevant than ever, 1984 is newly reimagined as an immersive audio drama starring Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and Tom Hardy, with music composition by Matt Bellamy of Muse, all mixed in Dolby Atmos spatial audio.
