LibGuides: Banned Books: Banned Award Winners

Award Winning Books That Have Been Banned or Challenged

The reason to ban books generally boils down to ideas that are perceived as dangerous in some way to an individual, group, or government that does not want others to have access to that idea, whether the idea is about God, government or society. This list highlights the award winning books that have been banned and why.

Print books can be checked out with a COM ID; for eBooks must access on campus or login with your COM account for off campus access.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Also available in print: PS3573.A425 C6 1992
Why: explicit sexuality, profanity, violence, and portrayal of drug use
Pulitzer Prize Winner
#31 Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell
Also available in print: PR6029.R8 A63 2003
Why: political theories
Retro Hugo Award
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Also available in print: PS3562.E353 T6 1982
Why: Conflicts with values of the community.
Pulitzer Prize Winner
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Also available in print: PS 3537 .T3234 G8 2000
Why: Profanity, sexuality
Pulitzer Prize Winner
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Also available in print: PS3608.O832 K58 2007
Why: sexually explicit content, offensive language, and age inappropriateness.
Boeke Prize in 2004
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Why: Offensive language
Whitbread Book Awards for Best Novel and Book of the Year, the Commonwealth
Writers' Prize for Best First Book
Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Also available in print: PS3555.L625 I5 1994
Why: Profanity, violence, sexuality
National Book Award
#19 on Modern Library's 100 Best Novels
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Also available in print: PS3551.L35774 A27 2007
Why: strong language and racial slurs, as well as topics of alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, and sexuality.
2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Also available in print: PS 3563 .O8749 B436 1998
Why: Violence, sexuality
Pulitzer Prize Winner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Also available in print: PS3511.A86 S7 1992
Why: Banned under the US Federal Anti-Obscenity Act (AKA Comstock Law).
Winner of the Nobel Prize
#6 on Modern Library's 100 Best Novels
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Also available in print: PR6013.O35 L6 2013
Why: profanity, racism, misogyny, portrayals of sexuality, use of racial slurs, and excessive violence
Golding received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.