Most-Challenged Books Have a Common Theme

The American Library Association logged a record 1,269 demands to ban books in 2022, nearly double the number from the previous year. In its list of the 10 books targeted the most (the list comes to 13 because of ties), most have LGBTQ themes and were deemed too sexually explicit by critics. As the Wall Street Journal notes, most of the books were written by LGBTQ authors and people of color. The list includes Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye. Here are the ALA's 13 most-challenged books:

1. Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe
2. All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson
3. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
4. Flamer, by Mike Curato
5. (tie) Looking for Alaska, by John Green
6. (tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
7. Lawn Boy, by Jonathan Evison
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
9. Out of Darkness, by Ashley Hope Pérez
10. (tie) A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas
11. (tie) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
12. (tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews
13. (tie) This Book is Gay, by Juno Dawson

See the ALA site for more details on the books. (More banned books stories.)