Visit the Padlet board, also linked below, to engage with each other around the banned books that we chose as a Division. Share your thoughts, feedback, resources you have found, and comment on each other's posts, too!
Visit the Bobst Staff Lounge on the 7th floor to read a banned book.
Thanks to the support of the Ashley Maynor and the Library Lab, we will have copies of several banned books in the Little Free Library now setup in the lounge!
Andrew Rarig designed the DoL DoL bookmark and each banned book in the Little Free Library has its own bookplate to commemorate the Banned Books Day of Learning. Check out the selection of books to borrow and also take a bookmark!
Especially a book club that reads banned books!
NYU Libraries will acquire an ebook license for the top 3 voted banned books from this selected list (Qualtrics form to submit your rankings). We will send an announcement when they are available in the catalog and then we will hold a session in late September/early October for us to get together and discuss the books.
Feed by “The crystalline realization of this wildly dystopic future carries in it obvious and enormous implications for today’s readers—satire at its finest.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Explicit language and sexual overtones.
Lawn Boy by “A book about triumphing over obstacles, and obstacles, and obstacles, and more obstacles” - Kirkus Reviews.
Why banned? Profanity and sexual explicit scenes.
Out of Darkness by “A powerful, layered tale of forbidden love in times of unrelenting racism.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Profanity and sexual explicit scenes.
Speak by “Powerful, necessary, and essential.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Vulgarity and depictions of rape.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by “Junior’s keen cartoons sprinkle the pages as his fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence.
The Bluest Eye by “A skillful understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit.
The Handmaid's Tale by “...a minutely rendered and impressively steady feminist vision of apocalypse.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Vulgarity and sexual overtones.
The Hate U Give by “This story is necessary. This story is important.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Profanity, violence, and because it was thought to promote an anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda.
The Things They Carried by “By moving beyond the horror of the fighting to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear, by questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of truth, he places ''The Things They Carried'' high up on the list of best fiction about any war.” -New York Times
Why banned? Vulgar language, sexual content, and violence.
This Book is Gay by “An exuberant guide to LGBT life takes the stance that “being L or G or B or T or * is SUPER FUN.” - Kirkus Reviews
Why banned? Sexual education and LGBTQIA+ content.
To Kill a Mockingbird by To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on that gut instinct of right and wrong, and distinguishes it from just following the law. - The Guardian
Why banned? Themes of rape and use of profanity and racial slurs.