LGBTQ: Despite continued progress towards LGBTQ equality, some people do not want others to read books focusing on such stories and characters regarding gender issues.
Obscenity: The work exposes objectionable or improper subject matter to a global audience.
Profanity: The literature contains vulgar dialogue that is considered unacceptable for everyday life.
Racism: Although what was written was acceptable when it was initially published, it appears offensive to modern readers and distasteful in current society.
Sexuality: The material explicitly details sexual practices or utilizes erotic language when discussing the human body.
All Boys Aren’t Blue. In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.
And Tango Makes Three: The story of two male penguins who create a family after they are given the egg of a female chick to hatch.
Beyond Magenta: Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults to represent them thoroughly and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgement of gender preference.
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo: A fictional day in the life of rabbit Marlon Brando, in a same-sex romance with another rabbit named Wesley.
Drama: The story of Callie, a middle school student and theater-lover who works in her school’s drama production crew while dealing with tween hardships.
Gender Queer: A memoir recounting Kobabe’s journey from adolescence to adulthood and the author’s exploration of gender identity and sexuality, ultimately identifying as being outside the gender binary.
Heather Has Two Mommies: Heather feels badly at first because she has two mommies and no father, but learns that there are many different families and the important thing is all the people love each other.
I am Jazz: The story of a transgender child traces her early awareness that she is a girl in spite of male anatomy and the acceptance she finds through a doctor who explains her natural transgender status.
Lawn Boy: Mike Muñoz, a young adult Mexican-American who has faced hardship ever since his childhood, goes through a phase of self-discovery. The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Charlie’s unconventional style of thinking is seen as he navigates between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood, and attempts to deal with poignant questions spurred by his interactions with both his friends and family.
Melissa's Story: Trans fourth grader Melissa, who is seen by everyone as a boy named George decides to reveal who she really is by playing the role of Charlotte in her class play of Charlotte’s Web.
Mommy, Mama, and Me: A baby enjoys the day with her two loving mothers.
Out of Darkness: The story of two teenagers: Naomi, who is Mexican, and Wash, who is black, and their dealings with race, segregation, love, and the forces that destroy people.
Prince & Knight: A young prince falls in love with a knight after the two work together to battle a dragon threatening the kingdom.
Rainbow Boys: The lives of three high school seniors focus on issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age.
Sex is a Funny Word: A comic book about bodies, gender, and sexuality for children that allows adults to convey their values and beliefs.
This Book is Gay: An uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it’s like to grow up LGBTQ.
This Day in June: This picture book depicts a family attending a pride parade.
This One Summer: A graphic novel depicting a summer in Awago between Rose and Windy discovering themselves and their sexuality while battling family dynamics and mental disabilities.
Two Boys Kissing: Men who have survived AIDS try to help a cross-section of today’s gay teens who navigate new love, long-term relationships, coming out, self-acceptance and more in a society that has changed in many ways.
Harry Potter series.
Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caufield ends up exhausted and emotionally unstable as he searches for truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world.
Go Ask Alice: A teenage girl develops a drug addiction and runs away from home on a journey of self-destructive escapism.
The Hate U Give: Balzer + Bray. Starr Carter, an African-American girl from a poor neighborhood attending an elite private school, becomes involved in a national news story after witnessing a white police officer shoot and kill her friend; social tensions culminate in a riot after a jury decides not to indict the officer.
Looking for Alaska: Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and good pranks, but what follows is a search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.
Maus: The experiences of a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor through graphic novel illustrations with mice representing Jews and cats as Germans.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: A teen tries to keep a low profile in high school but his outlook on life changes after befriending a classmate diagnosed with leukemia.
Of Mice and Men: The tragic story of how plans can go wrong shown with the friendship between two migrant workers, George and mentally retarded Lenny, and their dream of owning a farm.
Speak: High school freshman Melinda Sordino attempts to fight through her depression and reestablish her lost identity after being raped by a schoolmate at a party.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The tale of two runaways with one escaping an abusive father and the other escaping slavery.
The Bluest Eye: A young African-American girl named Pecola grows up consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin, developing an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with “whiteness”.
Brave New World: In a “utopian” future, humans are bred and indoctrinated to uphold an authoritarian ruling order at the cost of freedom and humanity.
The Color Purple: Sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty and hope through a series of letters joined by love for each other, the men who abuse them, and the children for whom they care.
Fifty Shades of Grey: The deepening erotic relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey.
The Handsmaid’s Tale: In a strongly patriarchal society a woman named Offred belongs to a group known as "handmaids", who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "commanders".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
The Kite Runner: The story of an unlikely friendship between Amir, a wealthy Afghan boy, and Hassan, the son of his father's servant - who he later finds out, after Hassan's death, has always been his half-brother.
New Kid: A black boy, Jordan Banks, experiences culture shock when he enrolls at a private school and has to adjust to a new school, experiences and witnesses microagressions.
To Kill A Mockingbird: Inequities through the eyes of a young girl as her lawyer father defends a black man accused of rape in the South.