There's a Book for That: Banned Books Week
Celebrate the right to read! Banned Books Week 2026 takes place from October 4 to October 10, with the official theme “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.” The American Library Association launched the first Banned Books Week in 1982 to promote reading and oppose censorship. The most common justifications for censorship provided by complainants were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice.
We at Penguin Random House stand with our authors and are committed to publishing diverse stories and rich, wide-spanning perspectives. We stand with teachers and librarians and trust their expertise in what books to share with young readers. And we stand with our readers, because everyone deserves to see themselves in a book. For more information, book resumes, and how to get involved visit https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/banned-books/. Below are two books that were challenged the most in 2025 (the 2026 list will come out in April 2027):
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND STONEWALL BOOK AWARD
From acclaimed author Malinda Lo comes a gripping, tender coming-of-age novel exploring identity, queerness, and historical upheaval set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1950s.
The award-winning debut from John Green
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called “The Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
And here are some of the books that are most often challenged, historically:
1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever… “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thought crimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching…
From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace. In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—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. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Click here for the Spanish edition.
A stunning deluxe edition for the fortieth anniversary of an unparalleled cornerstone of feminist literature, featuring the original cover art and a short, unpublished essay penned in 1986 by Margaret Atwood, “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (The New York Times).
In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.
Spend your summer with an unforgettable novel about falling in love for the first time from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places. Compulsively readable and impossible to forget, Jennifer Niven’s luminous novel is a tender portrait of a young woman determined to write her own next chapter—love, heartbreak, mosquito bites, and all.
Please visit bannedbooksweek.org for events, free downloads, resources and more information
Visit the collection to learn more about these and other challenged/banned books: Banned Books Week 2026
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