13 Banned Books That Will Always Have a Place on Our Shelves

In this groundbreaking graphic memoir and inspiration for the recent Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father, the director of a small town funeral home, until she came out as a lesbian in college and discovered that he was also gay.

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. The basis for the hit Broadway show, the improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

As a teenager, Junior is a skilled cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to have a successful future, he attends an all-white farm-town high school where the only other Native American is the school mascot.

Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution is intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original. The child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

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.

Set against the backdrop of tumultuous, war-torn Afghanistan, THE KITE RUNNER is an unforgettable and heartbreaking story of friendship, family, and redemption.

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A STOLEN LIFE is Jaycee Dugard’s raw and powerful memoir about being kidnapped in 1991, when she was 11 years old, and held captive for more than 18 years.

As joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable as childhood itself, Maya Angelou’s debut memoir captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou was awarded in 2011.

Set on a small island in Puget Sound, this gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric novel is a masterpiece that will leave you shaken and changed.

In the small, mostly white town of Clanton, Mississippi, two drunk and remorseless young men commit a terrible crime against a 10-year-old girl. When the girl’s black father decides to take justice into his own hands, defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client’s life.

In this emotionally riveting story, Jodi Picoult tackles the controversial subject of what it means to be a good parent and a good sister with keen insight and grace. MY SISTER’S KEEPER portrays a family is torn apart by conflicting needs between two daughters.

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By age 12, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. But after years of losing his friends and family members to violence and prisons, he saw a way out of his circumstances through education and the power of words—and he became an award-winning poet. ALWAYS RUNNING is his memoir.

After her death in 1973, Susie Salmon is adjusting to her new home in heaven, and watching life on earth continue without her. Her friends are trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer is trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family is unraveling. From above, Susie learns more about the man who took her life, and watches as her father searches for answers.