Reading Recs

This is a beautiful coming of age story about friendship, sexuality, masculinity, culture, self-discovery, and the intersection of all those things. Aristotle (Ari) and Dante are both Mexican American, but their relationship with their cultural identify and how it impacts their lives is very different, and they both begin to understand the other’s perspective through an unlikely friendship. I cried so many times while reading this book, both happy and sad tears. I also highly recommend the audiobook, which is read by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Banned for: depiction of homosexuality and references to drugs and sex. – Katlyn Griffin, Kent Library

Until August 9th, Toni Morrison was the only living American novelist to have won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Her best-known book, Beloved, which won the Pulitzer for fiction in 1988, is a perennial entry on the ALA's annual 50 most challenged books. In 2016 Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, ended up on that list as well. It's easy to see why lots of folks find the novel to be controversial. Its narrator, Claudia, is an 11 year-old child trying to make sense of her African American neighborhood's response the shocking pregnancy of her classmate, Pecola Breedlove. The book explores troubling themes: the sexual assault of children, incest, victim-blaming, class-divides, and the politics of respectability in historically marginalized communities. The Bluest Eye is also a careful examination of the ways in which female beauty is often centered in girls' and women's lived experiences. Morrison asks and answers some important questions about Eurocentric standards of attractiveness and their attendant effects on the psyches of people who can never hope to meet them. In so doing, she crafts a novel that is both heartbreaking and eye-opening. I think the text should be required reading for anyone raising, mentoring and teaching girls and young women, because most of those girls and young women are engaged in an unending struggle to love themselves in a world that prioritizes their conventional attractiveness over their well-being, where their parents, mentors and teachers often prefer to ignore pervasive systemic sexual violence against them because facing it and addressing it is unpleasant and disconcerting. – Sandra Cox, English

An honest, moving story of friendship and loss, Bridge to Terabithia tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two ten year olds, Jess and Leslie. Together they create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations set the only limits. This book was challenged due to references to magic, atheism, and swearing. – Mary Robbins, Kent Library

Published in 1903, The Call of the Wild tells the story of a dog, Buck, who's life is changed forever when he is stolen from his pleasant home and transported to the Alaskan frontier to become a working sled dog. This classic is a powerful tale, about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival. The novel was banned in 1929, in Yugoslavia and Italy. – Mary Robbins, Kent Library

Catcher in the Rye is one of the top banned books of all time. The American Library Association notes that Catcher in the Rye “has been a favorite target of censors” and is one of the books that is the most likely to wind up on censor lists since its publication in 1951. Reasons offered as to why this book should be banned include its use of profanity, its passages that detail sexually explicit situations, and its portrayal of teenage angst in a morally ambiguous world. Yet when you read Catcher in the Rye, you quickly ascertain that the main character in the story, Holden Caulfield, is a person who is truly awake. Holden sees society for what it is, and he sees the people in society for who and what they are. Holden sees through the game that we call life, and he is both properly and justifiably upset by the phoniness of people who play the game we call life. In the book Holden says, “people never notice anything.” Reading Catcher in the Rye will give you what you need to start noticing everything. – Christopher Bradley, Criminal Justice, Social Work, & Sociology

Fun Home is the memoir in graphic novel form of Alison Bechdel (coincidentally inventor of the ‘Bechdel test’ – an incredibly simple and incredibly effective way of determining women’s agency as characters in film). There are two main threads to the memoir involving Alison developing her identity while progressing into adulthood, and reconciling a complex relationship with her father, who died (possibly of suicide) on the cusp of that adulthood. Simultaneously both profoundly unique and very relatable, this work has been banned or challenged for its thematic material involving homosexuality and visual depictions of sexual situations. – Karl Suhr, Kent Library

If you have not seen the show, or heard anything about the show, which may at this point be impossible, this book is hard to stomach. But, please, do not let that stop you because reading books like this very important. Margaret Atwood is so delightfully skilled at taking the present day and weaving in changes to make a future that could possibly happen (remember she published this in 1985). What happens in The Handmaid’s Tale feels like it could very well happen now if we are not careful, if we do not work to keep the precarious balance of our political divides, if we can’t find a way to live in some sort of harmony. Gilead is a frightening world, and Atwood will make you wonder, are we heading there? – Brittany Colbert, Kent Library

Dystopias are often defined by their violence towards their people, but few do it with as much pizazz as Panem in The Hunger Games. Every year as punishment for a past rebellion the capitol selects teenagers from across the country to participate in the titular games, a murderous reality competition where the winner gets a lifetime of wealth and everyone else gets killed. Our hero Katniss, who volunteered for the games to save her sister, has to balance her survival instincts with her growing desire to take a stand in defiance to the monstrous society that would force her to fight for its amusement. The Hunger Games has been challenged for its depictions of violence and because some found it "unsuitable" for its target audience of young adults. – Carl Hess, Kent Library

I recommend Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich because it adeptly highlights the plight of the working poor. It's important to understand that the author assumes a working poor identity. Then, for several months, Ehrenreich applies to and works jobs that pay only minimum wage. Then she tries in earnest to pay her rent, buy groceries and generally make ends meet. By doing all this undercover, over time she ingratiates herself to many of her financially strapped co-workers and gets the 'straight scoop' on their situations. This makes for some interesting reading! Reasons why the book was challenged (according to the American Library Association) include some of the following descriptors: economic fallacies (not true); socialist ideas (maybe); advocating the use of illegal drugs (I don't recall this); belittling Christians (perhaps instances of their hypocrisy); profanity (true), biased portrayal of capitalism (no doubt but justified IMHO). It's a fun ride and well worth your time! – John Baken, Kent Library

Join Max, a young boy, who's boisterous playfulness gets him sent to bed without supper. His room magically turns into a jungle filled with "Wild Things." The Wild Things hail him as king and together they play until Max becomes lonely and wants to go home. Enjoy some rumpus fun with this delightful mix of humor and fright. – Stephanie Hallam, Kent Library