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Celebrate the Freedom to Read

Exercise your freedom to read with these frequently challenged or banned books. Banned books have been removed from a library because of objections to its content. Challenged books have been subject to attempts to see library materials removed or restricted. Learn more at ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks.

Gender queer by Maia Kobabe

"In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Then e created Gender Queer. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gayfan fiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: It is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere"--

Me and Earl and the dying girl : a novel by Jesse Andrews

Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia.

Flamer by Mike Curato

In the summer between middle school and high school, Aiden Navarro navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and finds himself drawn to Elias, a boy he can't stop thinking about.

A court of mist and fury by Sarah J Maas

Though Feyre now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, but as she navigates the feared Night Court's dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms--and she might be key to stopping it

The 1619 Project : a new origin story

"In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. The New York Times Magazine’s...'1619 Project' issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life."--book jacket

All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto by George M Johnson

In a series of personal essays, a prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, It covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy

Lawn boy by Jonathan Evison

"Mike Muñoz is a young Mexican American not too many years out of high school--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew. Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can't seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it"--

The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck

A novel about the plight of American farmers who were forced off their farms by drought and foreclosure during the 1930's

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huck tells of his adventures travelling down the Mississippi on a raft with an escaped slave, and of the many people they encounter, including a pair of swindlers and two families in a feud

The adventures of Super Diaper Baby by Dav Pilkey

Irrepressible friends George and Harold create a new comic book superhero, Super Diaper Baby.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

This grand old childhood classic relates a small-town boy's pranks and escapades with humor and wisdom that appeal to readers of every age. In addition to his everyday stunts (searching for buried treasure, trying to impress the adored Becky Thatcher), Tom experiences a dramatic turn of events when he witnesses a murder, runs away, and returns to attend his own funeral and testify in court

Always running : la vida loca, gang days in L. A. by Luis J Rodriguez

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and broke free from years of violence and desperation. He was sure the streets would haunt him no more - until his son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in this vivid memoir

An American tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

The author's classic vision of the dark side of American life looks at the failings of the American dream, in the story of the rise and fall of Clyde Griffiths, who sacrifices everything in his desperate quest for success

Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry

Anastasia's 10th year has some good things like falling in love and really getting to know her grandmother and some bad things like finding out about an impending baby brother

Animal farm : a fairy story by George Orwell

A satire on totalitarianism in which farm animals overthrow their human owner and set up their own government

Are you there God? It's me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Margaret Simon, almost twelve, has just moved from New York City to the suburbs, and she's anxious to fit in with her new friends. When she's asked to join a secret club she jumps at the chance. But when the girls start talking about boys, bras, and getting their first periods, Margaret starts to wonder if she's normal. There are some things about growing up that are hard for her to talk about, even with her friends. Lucky for Margaret, she's got someone else to confide in . . . someone who always listens

As I lay dying : the corrected text by William Faulkner

Recounts the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother, through the eyes of each of the family members

The awakening and other stories by Kate Chopin

Presents the 1899 novel about Edna Pontellier, a Victorian-era wife and mother who is awakened to the full force of her desire for love and freedom when she becomes enamored with Robert LeBrun, a young man she meets while on vacation, and includes thirty-two short stories by Kate Chopin, drawn from throughout her career.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. After the Civil War ends, Sethe longingly recalls the two-year-old daughter whom she killed when threatened with recapture after escaping from slavery 18 years before

Black boy (American hunger) : a record of childhood and youth by Richard Wright

The autobiography of an African-American writer, recounting his early years and the harrowing experiences he encountered drifting from Natchez to Chicago to Brooklyn.

Blood and chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her packmates and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom

Blubber by Judy Blume

Jill goes along with the rest of the fifth-grade class in tormenting a classmate and then finds out what it's like when she, too, becomes a target

The bluest eye by Toni Morrison

The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedloe, a black girl 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

Bone 1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith

The adventure starts when cousins Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone are run out of Boneville and later get separated and lost in the wilderness, meeting monsters and making friends as they attempt to return home

Brave new world by Aldous Huxley

Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom

Brideshead revisited : the sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh

Captain Charles Ryder, stationed at Brideshead, recalls his boyhood associations with the odd but charming members of an English noble family

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm

The call of the wild by Jack London

Presents the adventures of an unusual dog, part Saint Bernard and part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

The adventures of Captain Underpants. Color edition by Dav Pilkey

When George and Harold hypnotize their principal into thinking that he is the superhero Captain Underpants, he leads them to the lair of the nefarious Dr. Diaper, where they must defeat his evil robot henchmen.

Carrie; [a novel of a girl with a frightening power by Stephen King

In one way or another, everybody abused Carrie. This sixteen-year-old misfit was forbidden everything that was young and fun by her fanatical mother. She was teased and taunted by her classmates, misunderstood by her teachers, and given up as hopeless by almost everyone. But Carrie had a secret: She possessed terrifying telekinetic powers that could make inanimate objects move, a lighted candle fall, or a door lock. Carrie could make all kinds of startling bizarre, and malevolent things happen

Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

One of Vonnegut's major works, a young writer decides to interview the children of a scientist primarily responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb. This is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy, a bombadier named Yossarian is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. He has decided to live forever, even if he has to die in the attempt

The catcher in the rye by J Salinger

In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City.

The chocolate war by Robert Cormier

A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school's annual fund raising drive and arousing the wrath of the school bullies

A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess

A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

The color purple by Alice Walker

Celie has grown up in 1930s rural Georgia, navigating a childhood of ceaseless abuse. Not only is she poor and despised by the society around her, she's badly treated by her family. As a teenager she begins writing letters directly to God in an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear. Her letters span twenty years and record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment through the guiding light of a few strong women and her own implacable will to find harmony with herself and her home

The story of life on the golden fields. 1. The color of earth by Dong Hwa Kim

Ehwa tries to cope with her widowed mother's finding of new love, while she, after falling in love with Duksam, a young wrestler, discovers the pain of heartbreak when Master Cho sends Duksam away and asks for her hand in marriage himself, in a Korean novel in graphic format.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, she meets a boy who introduces her to crank. At first she finds it freeing, but soon Kristina's personality disappears inside the drug. What began as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul, and her life

Cujo by Stephen King

The story of the middle-class Trenton family and rural Camber clan in Castle Rock, Maine.Their domestic problems are dwarfed by mortal danger when Donna and her four-year-old son Tad are terrorized by a rabid St. Bernard named Cujo

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon

Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother

Cut by Patricia McCormick

While confined to a mental hospital, thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to understand some of the reasons behind her self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get better

Daughters of Eve by Lois Duncan

A high school teacher uses the guise of feminist philosophy to manipulate the lives of a group of girls with chilling results.

The dead zone by Stephen King

"A #1 national bestseller about a man who wakes up from a five-year coma able to see people's futures and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in the dead zone--a "compulsive page-turner" (the atlanta journal-constitution)"--

Deenie by Judy Blume

A thirteen-year-old girl seemingly destined for a modeling career finds she has a deformation of the spine called scoliosis

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Callie rides an emotional roller coaster while serving on the stage crew for a middle school production of Moon over Mississippi as various relationships start and end, and others never quite get going

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel

The Neanderthal world is portrayed reconstructing primordial daily life and beliefs

Eleanor & Park : a novel by Rainbow Rowell

"Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try"--

Fallen angels by Walter Dean Myers

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam

A farewell to arms : the Hemingway Library edition by Ernest Hemingway

The story of an ambulance driver wounded on the Italian front in World War I, the beautiful British nurse with whom he falls in love, and their journey to find sanctuary in a world gone mad

Fat kid rules the world by K Going

Troy Billings is seventeen, 296 pounds, friendless, utterly miserable, and about to step off a New York subway platform in front of an oncoming train. Until he meets Curt MacCrae, an emaciated, semi-homeless, high school dropout guitar genius, the stuff of which Lower East Side punk rock legends are made. Never mind that Troy's dad thinks Curt's a drug addict and Troy's brother thinks Troy's the biggest (literally) loser in Manhattan. Soon, Curt's recruited Troy as his new drummer--even though Troy can't play the drums. Together, Curt and Troy will change the world of punk, and Troy's own life, forever

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

When a listless office employee meets Tyler Durden, his ho-hum life takes a dramatic turn as a contender in amateur bare-knuckle street fighting matches that soon develop a fanatical following

Fifty shades of Grey : book one of the fifty shades trilogy by E James

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview the young, enigmatic entrepreneur Christian Grey she encounters a man who is brilliant, beautiful, and deeply flawed. Lured by her looks, stung by her wit, and challenged by her independent spirit, Grey is determined to make Ana his sexual possession -- and what Grey wants he gets. But can their relationship ever go deeper than that? Will Ana ever penetrate Grey's cold armour, and if she does, will she still love what she finds? Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

From the Publisher: With more than five million copies sold, Flowers for Algernon is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance-until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie? An American classic that inspired the award-winning movie Charly

For whom the bell tolls

"The story of Robert Jordan (Cooper), an American demolition expert who lends his abilities to the anti-fascist freedom fighters of Spain. Assisting him is a band of warriors that includes the strong-willed Pilar (Katina Paxinou), the dangerously undependable Pablo (Akim Tamiroff), and the lovely, innocent Maria (Bergman). As danger mounts, Robert and Maria develop a closeness that blossoms into one of the screen's greatest love stories."--Container

Friday night lights : a town, a team, and a dream by H Bissinger

Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, H. G. Bissinger chronicles a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires--and sometimes shatters--the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. The author's new afterword not only updates the story but also offers a sure-to-be controversial assessment of the state of football today.

Fun home : a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

A memoir done in the form of a graphic novel by a cult favorite comic artist offers a darkly funny family portrait that details her relationship with her father--a funeral home director, high school English teacher, and closeted homosexual

Melissa by Alex Gino

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.

The giver by Lois Lowry

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives

The glass castle : a memoir by Jeannette Walls

This story is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a penetrating look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who hated anything to do with domesticity. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered

Go tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin

"Life other defining works of American literature--Whitman's first edition of Leaves of Grass and Henry Roth's Call it Sleep are other examples--Go Tell It on the Mountain, first published in 1953, is an author's first major published work that went on to establish itself as an American classic. In a new language of lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a store-front Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday morning in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering in fiction of his protagonist's spirtual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and therefore in the range of Americans' self-understanding."--From the dust-jacket front flap

Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home

Gossip girl : a novel by Cecily Von Ziegesar

Presents a world of jealousy and betrayal at an exclusive private school in Manhattan

And Tango makes three by Justin Richardson

At New York City's Central Park Zoo, two male penguins fall in love and start a family by taking turns sitting on an abandoned egg until it hatches

The great Gatsby by F Fitzgerald

Bathtub gin, flappers and house parties that last all week enliven Fitzgerald's classic tale. Stylish and engaging, "The Great Gatsby" is also a startling literate portrait of Gatsby's search for meaning in his opulent world. In Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald embodies some of America's strongest obsessions: wealth, power, greed, and the promise of new beginnings

The great gilly hopkins . by Katherine Paterson

At eleven, Gilly is nobody's real kid. If only she could find her beautiful mother, Courtney, and live with her instead of in the ugly foster home where she has just been placed! How could she, the great Gilly Hopkins, known throughout the county for her brilliance and unmanageability, be expected to tolerate Maime Trotter, the fat, nearly illiterate widow who is now her guardian? Or for that matter, the freaky seven-year-old boy and the shrunken blind black man who are also considered part of the bizarre "family"? Even cool Miss Harris, her teacher, is a shock to her.Gutsy Gilly is both poignant and comic as, behind her best barracuda smile, she schemes against them and everyone else who tries to be friendly. The reader will cheer for her as she copes with the longings and terrors of always being a foster child.Katherine Paterson, winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal for Bridge to Terabithia and of the 1977 National Book Award for The Master Puppeteer, again reaches across boundaries with her wit, compassion, and love, and here creates an immensely engaging story about a child's desperate search for a place to call home

Grendel omnibus. Volume 1, Hunter Rose by Matt Wagner

Matt Wagner's masterpiece celebrates its thirtieth anniversary with the first ever comprehensive collection of the complete Grendel saga! The first of four volumes presenting the entire series and following the chronology of the stories, this edition introduces millionaire Hunter Rose and his alter ego, the criminal mastermind Grendel! Volume 1 reprints Grendel: Devil by the Deed; the short story collections Grendel: Black, White, & Red and Grendel: Red, White, & Black, featuring a host of legendary guest artists; and the epic Grendel: Behold the Devil. The complete series, collected for the first time! Disclaimer: This series is for Adults Only. It contains extensive gore

Habibi by Craig Thompson

Follows the relationship between two refugee child slaves, Dodola and Zam, who are thrown together by circumstance and who struggle to make a place for themselves in a world fueled by fear and vice

The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood

A look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction

Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone by J Rowling

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches

The golden compass by Philip Pullman

Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North

The Holy Bible : containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised ; commonly known as the authorized (King James) version

I am Jazz! by Jessica Herthel

Presents the story of a transgender child who traces her early awareness that she is a girl in spite of male anatomy and the acceptance she finds through a wise doctor who explains her natural transgender status

I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou

Author's memoir of growing up black in the 1930's and 1940's

In the night kitchen by Maurice Sendak

Sendak's classic comic fantasy of Mickey's adventures in the night kitchen tells us how we get our morning cake

Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

In the course of his wanderings from a Southern Negro college to New York's Harlem, an American black man becomes involved in a series of adventures. Introduction explains circumstances under which the book was written. Ellison won the National Book Award for this searing record of a black man's journey through contemporary America. Unquestionably, Ellison's book is a work of extraordinary intensity--powerfully imagined and written with a savage, wryly humorous gusto

It's perfectly normal : changing bodies, growing up, sex and sexual health by Robie H Harris

Introduces human sexuality, describes the changes brought about by puberty, and discusses sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and pregnancy

James and the giant peach by Roald Dahl

A young boy escapes from two wicked aunts and embarks on a series of adventures with six giant insects he meets inside a giant peach

Julie of the wolves by Jean Craighead George

While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack

The jungle by Kristina Gehrmann

"A compelling graphic novel adaptation of Upton Sinclair's seminal protest novel that brings to life the harsh conditions and exploited existences of immigrants in Chicago's meatpacking industry in the early twentieth century"--

Junie B. Jones and a little monkey business by Barbara Park

Because of an unusual misunderstanding, Junie B. Jones begins to think that her new baby brother is really a baby monkey

Kaffir boy : the true story of a Black youth's coming of age in Apartheid South Africa by Mark Mathabane

Recreates the author's boyhood experiences in South Africa.

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

A joke about killing the toughest teacher in school, the one who demands the most and gives the lowest grades, becomes a topic of serious discussion among the boys in the local hangout

The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini

Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara--a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him

Lady Chatterley's lover by D Lawrence

Bold, passionate, and erotic, this classic tale of love and discovery pits the paralyzed and callous Clifford Chatterley against his indecisive wife and her persuasive lover

Life is funny : a novel by E Frank

The lives of a number of young people of different races, economic backgrounds, and family situations living in Brooklyn, New York, become intertwined over a seven year period.

A light in the attic by Shel Silverstein

A collection of humorous poems and drawings

Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love, love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash

Lord of the flies by William Golding

Few works in literature have received as much popular and critical attention as Nobel Laureate William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Since its publication in 1954, it has amassed a cult following, and has significantly contributed to our dystopian vision of the post-war era. When responding to the novel's dazzling power of intellectual insight, scholars and critics often invoke the works of Shakespeare, Freud, Rousseau, Sartre, Orwell, and Conrad. Golding's aim to "trace the defect of society back to the defect of human nature" is elegantly pursued in this gripping adventure tale about a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin, and evil. Part parable, allegory, myth, parody, political treatise, and apocalyptic vision, Lord of the Flies is perhaps the most memorable tale about "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart." When they are marooned on a deserted island, a group of English schoolboys soon lose their civilized ways

The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of the lord of the rings by J Tolkien

After discovering the true nature of the one ring, Bilbo Baggins entrusts it to the care of his young cousin, Frodo, who is charged with bringing about its destruction and thus foiling the plans of the Dark Lord.

The lovely bones by Alice Sebold

In the first chapter of this haunting novel, 14-year-old Susie Salmon looks down from heaven and describes the horrifying events of her murder. As time goes on, Susie continues her curious observations while her family struggles to cope with the pain of her death. Her younger sister grows tougher and more mature, her mother goes to desperate lengths to ease the suffering, and her father begins a perilous quest to bring the killer to justice

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Although this monumental book was first ignored, it was a significant warning to the world for it contained an outline of Hitler's plans for his rise to power

My brother Sam is dead by James Lincoln Collier

Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town

My sister's keeper : a novel by Jodi Picoult

All her life, 13-year old Anna has helped her sister fight leukemia. Anna has provided platelets, bone marrow, and even stem cells to ensure Kate's survival. But when their parents ask her to donate a kidney, Anna has had enough. She enlist the aid of a lawyer and announces her intention to sue for control of her own body

Naked lunch : the restored text by William S Burroughs

An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone, its formal innovation, formerly taboo subject matter, and tour de force execution have exerted their influence on the work of authors like Thomas Pynchon, J.G. Ballard, and William Gibson; on the relationship of art and obscenity; and on the shape of music, film, and media generally. This restored text includes many editorial corrections to errors present in previous editions, and incorporates Burroughs' notes on the text, and several essays he wrote over the years about the book

Nasreen's secret school : a true story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter

Based on a true story. After her parents are taken away by the Taliban, young Nasreen stops speaking. But as she spends time in a secret school, she slowly breaks out of her shell.

Native son by Richard Wright

Set in 1930s' Chicago, this powerful novel is as meaningful today as when it was written--both in its unsparing reflection of the poverty in the inner cities across the U.S. and in what it means to be black in America. Traces the fall of a young black man in 1930s Chicago as his life loses all hope of redemption after he kills a white woman

Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

"Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job--any job--can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she workedas a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupationsrequire exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything--from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal--quite the same way again. "--

1984 by George Orwell

Satirical novel about people living in a collectivist society, pressed by Thought police into believing ignorance is strength and war is peace

Of mice and men by John Steinbeck

Tells a story about the strange relationship of two migrant workers, who are able to realize their dreams of an easy life until one of them succumbs to his weakness for soft, helpless creatures and strangles the farmer's wife. Tragic tale of a retarded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him

Olive's ocean by Kevin Henkes

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey

He's a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the ward of a mental hospital and takes over. He's a lusty, profane, life-loving fighter who rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Big Nurse. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women; at every turn, he openly defies her rule. The contest starts as sport (with McMurphy taking bets on the outcome) but soon it develops into a grim struggle for the minds and hearts of the men, into an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Big Nurse, backed by the full power of authority ... McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will

This one summer by Mariko 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

Ordinary people : a novel by Diana Evans

Hailed as "one of the most thrilling writers at work today" (Huffington Post), Diana Evans reaches new heights with her searing depiction of two couples struggling through a year of marital crisis. In a crooked house in South London, Melissa feels increasingly that she's defined solely by motherhood, while Michael mourns the former thrill of their romance. In the suburbs, Stephanie's aspirations for bliss on the commuter belt, coupled with her white middle-class upbringing, compound Damian's itch for a bigger life catalyzed by the death of his activist father. Longtime friends from the years when passion seemed permanent, the couples have stayed in touch, gathering for births and anniversaries, bonding over discussions of politics, race, and art. But as bonds fray, the lines once clearly marked by wedding bands aren't so simply defined. Ordinary People is a moving examination of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, and the fragile architecture of love.

The Outsiders by S Hinton

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society

The perks of being a wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is based on the wildly popular novel by Stephen Chbosky about a freshman named Charlie who is always watching from the sidelines until a pair of charismatic seniors takes him under their wing. Beautiful, free-spirited Sam and her fearless stepbrother Patrick shepherd Charlie through new friendships, first love, burgeoning sexuality, bacchanalian parties, midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the quest for the perfect song

The complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Collects a two-part graphic memoir, in which the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists describes growing up in Tehran, a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions between public and private life

The pigman by Paul Zindel

Two teenagers who lead unhappy lives at home form a strange relationship with a lonely old man

The pillars of the earth by Ken Follett

Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages

A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys-best friends-are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary

Rabbit, run by John Updike

Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman

Rainbow boys by Alex Sanchez

Jason Carrillo is a jock with a steady girlfriend, but he can't stop dreaming about sex-with other guys. Kyle Meeks doesn't look gay, but he is. And he hopes he never has to tell anyone-especially his parents. Nelson Glassman is "out" to the entire world, but he can't tell the boy he loves that he wants to be more than just friends.Three teenage boys, coming of age and out of the closet. In a revealing debut novel that percolates with passion and wit, Alex Sanchez follows these very different high school seniors as their struggles with sexuality and intolerance draw them into a triangle of love, betrayal, and, ultimately, friendship

Roll of thunder, hear my cry . by Mildred D Taylor

Winner of the Newbery Medal, this remarkably moving novel has impressed the hearts and minds of millions of readers. Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect. * "[A] vivid story.... Entirely through its own internal development, the novel shows the rich inner rewards of black pride, love, and independence."—Booklist, starred review

The satanic verses by Salman Rushdie

Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, fall earthward from a bombed jet toward the sea, singing rival verses in an eternal wrestling match between good and evil

A separate peace by John Knowles

The bittersweet rivalry between a lonely, introverted intellectual and a handsome, charismatic, daredevil athlete leads to a tragic accident during the ill-fated summer of '42

Shade's children by Garth Nix

If you're lucky, you live to fight another day. In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no human shall live a day past their fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the children of the Dorms are taken to the Meat Factory, where they will be made into creatures whose sole purpose is to kill. The mysterious Shade-once a man but now more like the machines he fights-recruits the few teenagers who escape into a secret resistance force. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than the others to discovering the source of the Overlords' power-and the key to their downfall. But the closer they get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become

Skippyjon Jones by Judith Byron Schachner

Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat with an overactive imagination who would rather be El Skippito, his Zorro-like alter ego

Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death by Kurt Vonnegut

Billy Pilgrim returns home from the Second World War only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present

The claiming of Sleeping Beauty: by A Roquelaure

From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,' the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him...as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her skillful pen, a compelling experience

Snow falling on cedars by David Guterson

When a newspaper journalist covers the trial of a Japanese American accused of murder, he must come to terms with his own past

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world

Sophie's choice by William Styron

As the fierce lovemaking and fights of Nathan, a paranoiac Jewish intellectual, and Sophie, a Polish-Catholic concentration-camp survivor, intensify, Stingo, a writer who lives below them in a cheap rooming house, becomes more and more involved in their lives

Sons and lovers by D Lawrence

The relationship between a middle-class woman and a coal miner is observed in this highly studied piece of literature

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

After calling the cops to an end-of-summer party, Melinda is outcast at Merryweather High. Through her work on an art project she is finally able to face what happened at that terrible party and gain courage to fight back

A stolen life : a memoir by Jaycee Lee Dugard

The author describes how she was held hostage for eighteen years by registered sex offender Phillip Garrido, who sexually abused her and fathered her two children, and how she was finally found by authorities

Summer of my German soldier by Bette Greene

When German prisoners of war are brought to her Arkansas town during World War II, twelve-year-old Patty, a Jewish girl, befriends one of them and must deal with the consequences of that friendship

The sun also rises

A group of Americans that have become friends because of the war, spend their time in Europe in 1922, still living as if every day was their last

Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

When Janie Starks returns to her rural Florida home, her small black community is overwhelmed with curiosity about her relationship with a younger man

The things they carried : a work of fiction by Tim O'Brien

This depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have

Thirteen reasons why : a novel by Jay Asher

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death

Tiger eyes by Judy Blume

Resettled in the "Bomb City" with her mother and brother, Davey Wexler recovers from the shock of her father's death during a holdup of his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City

A time to kill by John Grisham

A Southern town is shocked when a 10-year-old black girl is raped by two white men--until the girl's father takes the law into his own hands

To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee

The explosion of racial hate and violence in a small Alabama town in the 1930s is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape

Tropic of cancer by Henry Miller

Miller's groundbreaking first novel, banned in Britain for almost thirty years. A penniless and as yet unpublished writer, Henry Miller arrived in Paris in 1930. Leaving behind a disintegrating marriage and an unhappy career in America, he threw himself into the low-life of bohemian Paris with unwavering gusto. A fictional account of Miller's adventures amongst the prostitutes and pimps, the penniless painters and writers of Montparnasse, Tropic of Cancer is an extravagant and rhapsodic hymn to a world of unrivalled eroticism and freedom. Tropic of Cancer's 1934 publication in France was hailed by Samuel Beckett as 'a momentous event in the history of modern writing'. The novel was subsequently banned in the UK and the USA and not released for publication for a further thirty years.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human

Ulysses : an unabridged republication of the original Shakespeare and Company edition, published in Paris by Sylvia Beach, 1922 by James Joyce

Republishes the original 1922 text of the novel that traces the movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus through the streets of Dublin during the course of a single day--June 16, 1904.

The upstairs room by Johanna Reiss

A Dutch Jewish girl describes the two-and-one-half years she spent in hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a farmer's house during World War II.

Whale talk by Chris Crutcher

Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students

What my mother doesn't know by Sonya Sones

Sophie describes her relationships with a series of boys as she searches for Mr. Right

When Dad killed Mom by Julius Lester

When Jenna and Jeremy's father shoots and kills their artist mother, they struggle to slowly rebuild a functioning family

The wish giver : three tales of Coven Tree by Bill Brittain

When a strange little man comes to the Coven Tree Church Social promising he can give people exactly what they ask for, three young believers-in-magic each make a wish that comes true in the most unexpected way

The witches by Roald Dahl

A young boy is placed in the custody of his eccentric witch-expert grandmother before being transformed into a mouse by an evil coven that is plotting against local kids

Women in love by D Lawrence

"Let us hesitate no longer to announce that the sensual passions and mysteries are equally sacred with the spiritual mysteries and passions," wrote D. H. Lawrence in Women in Love, his masterpiece heralding the erotic consciousness of the twentieth century. Lawrence explores love, sex, passion, and marriage through the eyes of two sisters, Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen. Intelligent, incisive, and observant, the two very different sisters pursue thrilling, torrid affairs with their lovers, Rupert and Gerald, while searching for more mature emotional relationships. Against a haunting World War I backdrop of coal mines, factories, and a beleaguered working class, Gudrun and Ursula's temperamental differences spark an ongoing debate regarding their society, their inner lives, and the mysteries between men and women. Lawrence considered this to be his best novel

A wrinkle in time by Madeleine L'Engle

Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government

Recipient of the National Medal, the nation's highest honor for libraries.