Banned Books List: Activism and Social Movements

PEN America found that 15% of the more than 4,000 unique titles banned in US public schools during the 2023-2024 school year related to activism and social movements.

The bans affected more than 650 unique titles, including stories about the internment of Japanese people during World War II, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and sports icon Billie Jean King. Many of the banned books are about Black and LGBTQ+ people striving for their rights and whose stories have been the predominant targets of book banners since 2021.

Below are a sample of the fiction and nonfiction stories that explore themes of social change, justice, and democracy.

1. 100 Women Who Made History: Remarkable Women Who Shaped Our World by S.A. Caldwell (Bookshop) 
2. A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara (Bookshop) 
3. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Bookshop) 
4. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski (Bookshop) 
5. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds (Bookshop) 
6. Ban This Book by Alan Gratz (Bookshop) 
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison (Bookshop) 
8. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Bookshop)
9. Billie Jean! How Tennis Star Billie Jean King Changed Women’s Sports by Mara Rockliff (Bookshop) 
10. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (Bookshop) 
11. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Bookshop) 
12. Days of Infamy: How A Century of Bigotry Led to Japanese American Internment by Lawrence Goldstone (Bookshop)
13. Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Bookshop)
14. Gay and Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities by Jerome Pohlen, Jerome (Bookshop)
15. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (Bookshop) 
16. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins, Suzanne (Bookshop)
17. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (Bookshop)
18. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (Bookshop)
19. Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman by Sharice Davids (Bookshop) 
20. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Bookshop)
21. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams (Bookshop)
22. What Was Stonewall? by Nico Medina (Bookshop)