Banned Books Week | Comics @ SDSU

It’s the first week of October and with it comes an annual event to raise awareness about attempts to censor books in libraries, schools, and bookstores. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has hosted Banned Books Week since 1982 to alert the public about escalating attempts at censorship and highlight the importance of the right to read.

“In 2025 alone, [ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom] documented the censorship of 6,588 books in libraries and schools, the highest number ever recorded by the office and astronomically higher than the average of 70 titles per year censored from 2001-2020.”¹

This year, the OIC released a list of the Top 150 (153 due to ties) books that have been targeted for censorship since they began collecting data in the 1990s. Since you’re here for all things comics, here are the comics on the list of the 150 most frequently challenged books and their rank on the overall list, which can be found here.

Cover of Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, showing a figure reflected upside down in a lake. — #1
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Cover of Flamer by Mike Curato, showing a teenager against a fiery orange-and-white background. — #8
Flamer by Mike Curato

Pink cover of Drama by Raina Telgemeier, showing three young people walking together. — #30
Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Pale green cover of Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human, with the title in large red and dark-green letters surrounded by small illustrations of diverse people. — #41
Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen

White-and-purple cover of This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, showing two swimmers diving into dark blue water beneath a lavender sky. — #48
This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki

Cover of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, featuring a framed family photograph. — #60
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Bright pink and red cover of Sex Is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, showing four diverse children dancing beneath the large yellow title. — #64
Sex Is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg

Black cover of The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood, featuring a small red-cloaked figure. — #70
The Handmaid’s Tale (Graphic Novel) by Reneé Nault (the prose version is #23)

Cover of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, showing two students with backpacks walking together. — #98
Heartstopper, Vol. 1 by Alice Oseman

Cover of Blankets by Craig Thompson, showing a winter landscape with two figures. — #105
Blankets: An Illustrated Novel by Craig Thompson

Cover of The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson, showing a diverse group of young people playing soccer — #129
The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson

The prose version of the books below made the list, but each of these have been adapted into comics, shown here.

Cover of the graphic novel adaptation of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, showing children flying kites. — #14
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Bright pink cover of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, illustrated by Emily Carroll, showing a girl standing alone in front of a crowd of students. — #29
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Red-and-black cover of the graphic novel adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, and Albert Monteys, featuring a black helmet-like shape, hanging silhouettes, and a small figure inside concentric red circles. — #49
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, the Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut

Cover of The Graphic Canon, Volume 2, featuring illustrated literary characters and the subtitle “The World’s Great Literature as Comics and Visuals.” — #61
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (inside The Graphic Canon)

Cover of the graphic novel adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, showing a child watching two adults walk away beneath a pale blue sky; a red circle identifies it as “A Graphic Novel.” — #65
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Colorful cover of Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, featuring a young person against a purple and orange background. — #123
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Cover of the graphic novel adaptation of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, with a colorful futuristic city — #90
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Cover of the graphic novel adaptation of The Giver by Lois Lowry and P. Craig Russell, showing a bicycle above a watery reflection. — #117
The Giver by Lois Lowry

Lastly, these titles on the list include some comics-style illustrations.

Black cover of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, illustrated by Ellen Forney, with the title in large blue and white lettering and yellow drawings of a basketball player and a dancing figure. — #7
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, illustrated by Ellen Forney

Purple cover of It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley, showing a diverse group of young people standing together. — #12
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris

Cover of In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, showing a child flying above a nighttime city and bakery filled with oversized loaves, kitchen objects, and bakers. — #136
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

So there you have it. The number one book targeted for censorship is a comic! The annual display of banned comics is up in the Comics Corner on the first floor of Love Library and will remain through October.

To learn more about Banned Books Week, visit the ALA website at https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned