Harry Potter Again Tops ALA’s
List of Most-challenged Books

The best-selling Harry Potter series of children’s books by J. K. Rowling tops the list of most-challenged books for the third year in a row in the annual report issued January 17 by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The series continues to draw complaints from parents and others concerned about the books’ focus on wizardry and magic.

The other titles on the list, in order of number of challenges, were:

• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck for offensive language and unsuitability for age group.
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for offensive language and unsuitability for age group.
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou for sexual content, racism, offensive language, violence, and unsuitability for age group.
• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene for racism, offensive language, and sexual explicitness.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger for offensive language and unsuitability for age group.
• The “Alice” series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuitability for age group.
• Go Ask Alice by Anonymous for sexual explicitness, offensive language, and drug references.
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers for offensive language, and unsuitability for age group.
• Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause for sexual explicitness and unsuitability for age group.

Posted February 4, 2002.