The list was part of the ALA’s 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report. During the past year, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received 464 reports of challenged books. Here’s more from the report:

In California, a school committee voted to remove the Stephen King novella “Different Seasons” from Rocklin High School library shelves. The lone dissenter on that committee was 17-year-old student Amanda Wong, who continued to fight the ban and spoke against the decision at a later school board meeting. After hearing Wong’s concerns that the removal “opens a door to censoring other materials,” the district superintendent overturned the committee’s decision and returned the book to the Rocklin High School library’s collection.

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To support the books on the top ten most frequently challenged book list, we’ve linked to free samples of all the books on the list. Follow the links below to explore these controversial books yourself.

ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom director Barbara Jones had this comment: “While we firmly support the right of every reader to choose or reject a book for themselves or their families, those objecting to a particular book should not be given the power to restrict other readers’ right to access and read that book … As members of a pluralistic and complex society, we must have free access to a diverse range of viewpoints on the human condition in order to foster critical thinking and understanding.  We must protect one of the most precious of our fundamental rights – the freedom to read.”

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