2009-2010 Challenged or Banned Books

Explore the controversial 2009-2010 banned and challenged books list. Discover the titles that sparked debates and censorship attempts in schools and libraries across the U.S.

Item Not Found
ID: B0026L60K0
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0345514408
(Type: books)
The Tortilla Curtain Cover
Book

The Tortilla Curtain

by T.C. Boyle

T.C. Boyle’s “irresistible” (Entertainment Weekly) classic bestseller, a tragicomic novel about assimilation, immigration, and the price of the American dream “A masterpiece of contemporary social satire.” —The Wall Street Journal WINNER OF THE PRIX MÉDICIS ÉTRANGER Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: he a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Undocumented immigrants Cándido and América Rincón desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine. And from the moment a freak accident brings Cándido and Delaney into intimate contact, these four and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a dramatic comedy of error and prejudice.
Item Not Found
ID: 0738367311
(Type: books)
Running with Scissors Cover
Book

Running with Scissors

by Augusten Burroughs

The author describes his bizarre coming-of-age years after his adoption by his mother's psychiatrist, during which he witnessed such misadventures as a fake suicide attempt and front-lawn family/patient sleepovers.
Deal With It Cover
Book

Deal With It

by Esther Drill

The creators of the award-winning, phenomenally popular interactive website, gURL.com, present a hip, no-nonsense resource book for girls.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Cover
Book

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

Read the cult-favorite coming of age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory. Now a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a funny, touching, and haunting modern classic. The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. A years-long #1 New York Times bestseller, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and Best Book for Reluctant Readers, and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or “wallflowers” of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.
Item Not Found
ID: 0743284682
(Type: books)
Nickel and Dimed Cover
Book

Nickel and Dimed

 

No summary available.
Item Not Found
ID: 0547248806
(Type: books)
The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway Cover
Book

The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway

by Ernest Hemingway

The complete, authoritative collection of Ernest Hemingway's short fiction, including classic stories like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," along with seven previously unpublished stories. In this definitive collection of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s short stories, readers will delight in Hemingway’s most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection, totaling in sixty stories. This collection demonstrates Hemingway’s ability to write beautiful prose for each distinct story, with plots that range from experiences of World War II to beautifully touching moments between a father and son. For Hemingway fans, The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.
Item Not Found
ID: 1844422291
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0374511713
(Type: books)
Geography Club Cover
Book

Geography Club

 

No summary available.
A Prayer for Owen Meany Cover
Book

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

A story of friendship through adversity, faith and destiny, and the search for God.
Item Not Found
ID: 1595141553
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 1592333869
(Type: books)
Skeleton Crew Cover
Book

Skeleton Crew

by Stephen King

Who could imagine…? In this brilliant collection of twenty-two stories, Stephen King takes readers down paths that only he could imagine…. A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against unholy destruction…a trip to the attic turns into a journey to hell…a woman driver finds a very scary shortcut to paradise…an idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil…and a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged. Features the novella “The Mist”—Now a major motion picture
Item Not Found
ID: 0763644854
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0736827005
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0312945744
(Type: books)
The Bean Trees Cover
Book

The Bean Trees

 

No summary available.
To Kill a Mockingbird Cover
Book

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much. One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many dis-tinctions since its original publication in 1960. It has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal). HarperCollins is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication with this special hardcover edition.
Naked Cover
Book

Naked

 

No summary available.
Item Not Found
ID: 1401203078
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0689878451
(Type: books)
The Bookseller of Kabul Cover
Book

The Bookseller of Kabul

by Asne Seierstad

This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring books to the people of Kabul has elicited extraordinary praise throughout the world and become a phenomenal international bestseller. The Bookseller of Kabul is startling in its intimacy and its details - a revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today's Afghanistan.
Item Not Found
ID: 0670062219
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 140003342X
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0440421608
(Type: books)
Unwind Cover
Book

Unwind

by Neal Shusterman

The first twisted and futuristic novel in the perennially popular New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman. In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding ensures that the child's life doesn't "technically" end by transplanting all the organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound. With breathtaking suspense, this book follows three teens who all become runaway Unwinds: Connor, a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding; Risa, a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to cost-cutting; and Lev, his parents' tenth child whose unwinding has been planned since birth as a religious tithing. As their paths intersect and lives hang in the balance, Shusterman examines complex moral issues that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.
Item Not Found
ID: 1416907882
(Type: books)
The Glass Castle Cover
Book

The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls

Now a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts. MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic 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 abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. 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. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Item Not Found
ID: 0064472647
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: B003U2I1BK
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0060012749
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0316011827
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0395924952
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 1416990518
(Type: books)