The award-winning, best-selling graphic novel Drama by Raina Telgemeier has yet again found its way onto the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books list. The ALA released the list of the most challenged/censored books of 2019 earlier this month.
Challenged for “LGBTQIA+ content and for concerns that it goes against ‘family values/morals,’” Drama has appeared on the yearly list five times since it was published in 2012. This year it came in at No. 8, sandwiched between The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Drama is the only graphic novel to make the list this year; in previous years, it has been joined by the likes of This One Summer, Bone and the Captain Underpants series.
The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books every year in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from media stories and voluntary reports sent to them. According to the ALA, the lists are “only a snapshot of book challenges,” and surveys indicate that the majority of documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries remain unreported and receive no media attention.