Most Banned Books of All Time

Determining quantitatively what the most frequently banned book of all time is is not an easy or even possible task. Because there are no reliable historical data on the frequency of book banning, this report analyzes the list of the most frequently banned books over the last 3 decades.

How we did it: We’ve used ALA’s list of the most banned books for each of the past 3 decades and applied our metrics to rank the most banned books since 1990.

• Alvin Schwartz‘s series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is the most banned book (or book series) over the last 30 years, remaining on the list of the most frequently banned titles in each of the last 3 decades.
• Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s series Alice is the second-most banned book during this period.
• John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is in third place among the most banned titles since 1990.
• There have been 18 titles that made it to the list of 100 most banned books in each of the past 3 decades.
• 15 of these books were published prior to the 1990s.

A list of the 25 most banned books since 1990 is presented in the table below:

Title	Author	Publish year	WordsRated ban score
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (series)	Alvin Schwartz	1981	89
Alice (series)	Phyllis Reynolds Naylor	1985	88
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	1937	87
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health	Robie Harris	1994	84
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain	1884	83
The Bluest Eye	Toni Morrison	1970	80
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	1960	75
The Catcher in the Rye	J. D. Salinger	1951	74
The Color Purple	Alice Walker	1982	72
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Maya Angelou	1969	68
The Giver	Lois Lowry	1993	67
The Chocolate War	Robert Cormier	1974	64
And Tango Makes Three	Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson	2005	63
Beloved	Toni Morrison	1987	61
Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	1931	61
Captain Underpants (series)	Dav Pilkey	1997	61
Internet Girls (series)	Lauren Myracle	2004	60
Forever…	Judy Blume	1975	59
The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky	1999	58
Fallen Angels	Walter Dean Myers	1988	56
Bridge to Terabithia	Katherine Paterson	1977	54
My Brother Sam Is Dead	James Lincoln Collier, Christopher Collier	1974	53
Go Ask Alice	Anonymous	1971	52
In the Night Kitchen	Maurice Sendak	1970	51
Harry Potter (series)	J. K. Rowling	1997	50

Most banned books from 2010 to 2019

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the most frequently banned and challenged book between 2010 and 2019.
• Captain Underpants book series by Dav Pilkey ranks no 2 on the most banned list of the 10s, previously ranking no 13 between 2000 and 20009.
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is on the third stop among the most banned titles of the 10s.
• Looking for Alaska by John Green and George by Alex Gino complete the top 5.

The list of the 10 most frequently challenged titles between 2010 and 2019 is presented in the table below:

Title	Author	Publish year
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian	Sherman Alexie	2007
Captain Underpants (series)	Dav Pilkey	1997
Thirteen Reasons Why	Jay Asher	2007
Looking for Alaska	John Green	2005
George	Alex Gino	2015
And Tango Makes Three	Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson	2005
Drama	Raina Telgemeier	2012
Fifty Shades of Grey (series)	E. L. James	2011
Internet Girls (series)	Lauren Myracle	2004
The Bluest Eye	Toni Morrison	1970

• Over 40.63% of the most frequently banned titles from 2010 to 2019 were published in a previous decade, between 2000 and 2009.
• An additional 20.83% were published between 2010 and 2019. This means that over 60% of all most banned books during the 10s were published during the 21st century.
• 12.50% of the titles from this list were published between 1990 and 1999.

Decade published	Share on the 10s most banned list
Prior to 1970	12.50%
1970s	2.08%
1980s	11.46%
1990s	12.50%
2000s	40.63%
2010s	20.83%

Most banned books of the 00s

• One of the best-selling book series of all time, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was the most frequently challenged and banned book during the first decade of the 21st century. The series was among the top 50 most banned titles of the 90s as well.
• Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice ranks no2 on the list of the most banned titles from 2000 to 2009, and this book series found its way among the most banned books of the 90s and 10s.
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is the third most banned title during the 00s, after ranking no 4 from 1990 to 1999.

The list of the 10 most frequently banned and challenged books from 2000 to 2009 is presented on the table below:

Title	Author	Publish year
Harry Potter (series)	J. K. Rowling	1997
Alice (series)	Phyllis Reynolds Naylor	1985
The Chocolate War	Robert Cormier	1974
And Tango Makes Three	Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson	2005
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	1937
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Maya Angelou	1969
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (series)	Alvin Schwartz	1981
His Dark Materials (series)	Philip Pullman	1995
Internet Girls (series)	Lauren Myracle	2004
The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky	1999

• 28.28% of the titles listed as the most frequently banned during the 00s were published between 1990 and 1999, the most in all decades.
• 24.24% of books from this list were published during the 1970s, and an additional 12.12% were published prior to the 70s.
• 21.21% of the most banned titles of the 00s were published during the decade in question.

Decade published	Share on the 00s most banned list
Prior to 1970	12.12%
1970s	24.24%
1980s	14.14%
1990s	28.28%
2000s	21.21%

Most banned books of the 90s

• The most frequently banned book of the 90s is Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series by Alvin Schwartz. This title also made its way to the 7th spot on the most banned books of the 00s and the 24th spot on the most banned titles of the 10s.
• Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite is the second most banned book from 1990 to 1999.
• Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the third most banned book in the 90s, while also appearing no6 from 2000 to 2009 and no88 from 2010 to 2019.

List of the 10 most frequently banned books of the 90s is presented in the table below:

Title	Author	Publish year
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (series)	Alvin Schwartz	1981
Daddy’s Roommate	Michael Willhoite	1991
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Maya Angelou	1969
The Chocolate War	Robert Cormier	1974
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain	1884
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	1937
Forever…	Judy Blume	1975
Bridge to Terabithia	Katherine Paterson	1977
Heather Has Two Mommies	Lesléa Newman	1989
The Catcher in the Rye	J. D. Salinger	1951

• 22.22% of the most banned books of the 90s were published between 1990 and 1999.
• Most of the books from the 90s banned list were published during the 80s, 32.32% of them.
• An additional 29.29% were first published between 1970 and 1979, while 16.16% were published prior to 1970.

Decade published	Share on the 90s most banned list
Prior to 1970	16.16%
1970s	29.29%
1980s	32.32%
1990s	22.22%