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Books Belong: 8 Banned & Challenged Reads That Unite Us

October 5 2023
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Books serve as mirrors and windows, reflecting our experiences and offering glimpses into the lives of others. Ensuring their accessibility is essential for fostering understanding and empathy across various cultures and perspectives. Yet, there are movements that work to silence certain voices, relegating lives to the shadows. Censorship, born of fear and ignorance, stifles dialogue when difficult conversations are imperative for growth, collaboration, love, happiness—for the entirety of the human experience.

With Banned Books Week happening this week, we’re highlighting a few of our favorite banned and challenged books, which celebrate our shared humanity and unite us all as readers.  

All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

Juliet says: ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr offers a fresh, poignant perspective on WWII, chronicling the parallel journeys of Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a German boy skilled in radio mechanics. Set against the lesser-known siege of Saint-Malo, the novel explores the resilience and inherent curiosity of the human spirit amid chaos and terror. Although Marie-Laure and Werner's interactions are limited, their converging stories underscore the humanity and moral complexities that are shared across enemy lines. There are countless pieces of media set against the backdrop of WWII, but this one really is special. It’s not a story of bad people vs. good people, but rather serves as an exploration of individual choices during tumultuous times. The narrative is crafted beautifully, the characters are raw and authentic, and the blend of history and moral exploration makes this book a significant and essential read, illuminating the enduring light within humanity even in the darkest times.

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All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr

*COMING IN NOVEMBER AS A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti*

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

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MENTIONED IN:

Books Belong: 8 Banned & Challenged Reads That Unite Us

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 5, 2023

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Beartown
by Fredrik Backman

Juliet says: Fredrik Backman’s BEARTOWN is a compelling narrative set in a small town where the hopes of the community are pinned on the local junior hockey team. The story unfolds with a violent act that shakes the town, testing loyalties and revealing people’s complexities. Backman’s rich, diverse characters find themselves navigating issues of rape culture, homophobia, racism, and the consequences of blind idolization. As such, this book is not just a story of a community and societal expectations; it’s a crucial read for understanding the intricacies of the human condition. It’s a book that challenges, moves, and stays with you, highlighting the importance of diverse narratives in our literary landscape. The power of BEARTOWN lies in its ability to push readers out of their comfort zones, making it a vital addition to accessible literature.

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Beartown
Fredrik Backman

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The Black Kids
by Christina Hammonds Reed

Nicole says: It’s not often that I come across a book that centers on the specific Black experience that I’m familiar with—that of an upper middle class Black girl raised in a predominantly white environment coming to terms with what Blackness means to her. THE BLACK KIDS takes place in the early 1990s during the height of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, and I found myself relating to the internal struggles the main character faced, especially considering the parallels between the world then and now. THE BLACK KIDS is about a high school senior named Ashley Bennett, whose main concern, as the school year winds down, has been on how she will spend her last summer before college. That all changes, however, when the LAPD officers who killed Rodney King are acquitted of all charges. Ashley tries to continue life as usual, but it becomes increasingly clear that she is one of “the black kids” and not just “one of the girls.” She’s forced to reckon with what that means as her sister becomes entwined in the protests and the world that her parents so carefully crafted for them starts to crumble. I loved this book for so many reasons, and I truly believe that it should be required reading; my biggest “joy” in reading it was the way Christina Hammonds Reed put so expertly into words the feelings that I’ve felt at so many stages of my life.

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The Black Kids
Christina Hammonds Reed

A New York Times bestseller
A William C. Morris Award Finalist

“Should be required reading in every classroom.” —Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin
“A true love letter to Los Angeles.” —Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of Little & Lion
“A brilliantly poetic take on one of the most defining moments in Black American history.” —Tiffany D. Jackson, author of Grown and Monday’s Not Coming

Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots.

Los Angeles, 1992

Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer.

Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.

As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.

With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?

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MENTIONED IN:

Books Belong: 8 Banned & Challenged Reads That Unite Us

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 5, 2023

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

Juliet says: When we talk about banned and challenged books, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALFLOWER is where it gets personal for me. This is one of those books that, as an adult, I’m able to recognize as flawed and needlessly quirky, but as a desperately shy and sad queer teen, I needed a book like this. Chbosky’s story centers on a reserved teen who is navigating not just the complexities of high school, dating, and drama, but of grief, depression, and trauma. Yes, those are heavy themes for young people, but being a young person is heavy sometimes, and finding stories that make you feel less alone can make the tumultuous adolescent years far more bearable. I hope this book is around for generations to come.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky

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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

Sharon says: Toni Morrison’s books are frequently the target of book bans across the country; her first novel, THE BLUEST EYE, has historically been the most challenged due to its unabashed commentary on racism, class, beauty standards, and gender in the United States. Inspired by a conversation Morrison had with a friend in elementary school who wished she had blue eyes, THE BLUEST EYE follows Pecola Breedlove, a Black girl from an impoverished family who believes that if she had blue eyes and blond hair, her troubles would be resolved.

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The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison

Pecola Breedlove is a young black girl who prays every day for the blonde hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to fit in with her peers. This novel is a powerful examination of beauty, conformity, race, class, and gender from the legendary Toni Morrison.

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Autoboyography
by Christina Lauren

Sharon says: I read this book for the first time nearly three years ago, and I still vividly remember staying up late to finish it because I was so engrossed in the story. Perfect for fans of SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA and the TV series Heartstopper, AUTOBOYOGRAPHY is a heartwarming read that follows Tanner, a senior at Provo High in Utah itching to finish up his high school career and flee to an out-of-state college. On a whim during his last semester, he decides to enroll in the school’s notorious Seminar, which requires students to write a book in four months. While engaged in writing his book, Tanner can’t help but notice the Seminar’s mentor, writing prodigy Sebastian Brother, and soon the two begin to have feelings for each other.

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Autoboyography
Christina Lauren

“This book is epic.” —Cosmopolitan
“A hopeful and moving love story.” —Publishers Weekly

Fangirl meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this “sensitive and complex” (BCCB) coming-of-age novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren about two boys who fall in love in a writing class—one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community.

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.

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Gender Queer: A Memoir
by Maia Kobabe

Sharon says: One of the country’s most frequently challenged books today, GENDER QUEER is an honest look at author Maia Kobabe’s journey coming out as nonbinary and asexual. I really appreciated reading this comic-strip-formatted memoir, as Kobabe’s process of grappling with eir self-identity is not as straightforward as the mainstream media often paints coming-out narratives to be. Through GENDER QUEER, Kobabe provides an in-depth look at the life events, the media, and the individuals that gave em the tools to discover and fully embrace eir queerness.

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Gender Queer: A Memoir
Maia Kobabe

2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book

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. Now, Gender Queer is here. 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 gay fanfiction, 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.

"It’s also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." — SLJ (starred review)

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MENTIONED IN:

Books Belong: 8 Banned & Challenged Reads That Unite Us

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 5, 2023

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The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende

Emily says: I can’t imagine a more perfect book to enlighten and unite readers, and it’s devastating that this novel, which attempts to shed a light on our common humanity, has been requested to be removed from schools many times since its publication in 1982. THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS spans three generations in Chile, from post-WWI through 1973, and each section is centered around the women in the family as they assert their independence against the historical events of the time. Politics, love, and violence interact with the characters’ narratives throughout the years, providing a humanistic window into history.

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The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende

“It was an enormous pleasure for me to reread this book three decades after it first made its mark on me. I found myself still enraptured by the words of these women, still dazzled by the magic potion that is Isabel Allende’s gift for storytelling. And as I reached the final page, I smiled in wonderment at the forces that led me to where I am today, and was thankful for the reminder that our future is written in the stars.”

Read Johanna Castillo’s review here.

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Photo credit: iStock / Chinnapong

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