City Lit Theater Company, in association with the American Library Association (ALA)’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, will again present BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK during BANNED BOOKS WEEK, October 5-11, at various locations in and around the greater Chicago area. BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK is a 60-minute program of readings of short excerpts from the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2024, accompanied by background on each book, including the reasons for their challenges. The readings will be performed by actors Eulalia Jane, Noelle Klyce, Jeffery Gougis, and Norine McGrath; and will be followed by audience discussions.
The American Library Association says, “New data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries. Parents only accounted for 16% of demands to censor books, while 5% of challenges were brought by individual library users. The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books.
Every year since 1982, the American Library Association has released a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books as reported to their Office of Intellectual Freedom. BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK features those books, celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the first amendment. City Lit Theater will present the 2025 BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK at four locations in the greater Chicago area.
City Lit Executive Artistic Director Brian Pastor says, "The freedom to read is essential to a civilized society. For many marginalized communities, the freedom to read represents the freedom to be themselves. City Lit is proud to continue its BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK program at a time when attempts at book banning are at an all-time high. We are pleased to ally ourselves with the American Library Association in this important work."
The BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK script is produced and adapted from the “Top 10 Challenged Books” by City Lit Education Director Katy Nielsen. Nielsen says, “BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK is about opposing book bans but also extends to any unconstitutional efforts to abridge the freedom of speech, including banning and censoring social media platforms or demonstrations of political speech.”
The 2025 performance schedule for BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
Monday, October 6 – 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
DePaul Theatre School, Lobby
2350 N. Racine Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
Tuesday, October 7 - 6:30 PM
Wilmette Public Library
1242 Wilmette Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
Wednesday, October 8 - 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
1201 Cedar Lane
Northbrook, IL 60062
Saturday, October 11 - 2:00 PM
Chicago Public Library, Edgewater Branch
6000 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60660
The Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2024:
1. All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson
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. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
2. Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears…
3 (Tie). The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different.
3 (Tie). The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
A coming-of-age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems, but also with the suicide of his best friend.
5. Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins
A young adult verse novel by Ellen Hopkins, released in August 2009. It tells the converging narratives of five troubled teenage protagonists.
6 (Tie). Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.
6 (Tie). Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews
Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia — cue extreme adolescent awkwardness — but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed.
8 (Tie). Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter, gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul – her life.
8 (Tie). Sold, by Patricia McCormick
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.
10. Flamer, by Mike Curato
It’s the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone’s going through changes–but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.
ABOUT CITY LIT THEATER COMPANY
City Lit is the eighth oldest continuously operating theatre company in Chicago, behind only Goodman, Court, Northlight, Oak Park Festival, Black Ensemble Theatre, Steppenwolf, and Pegasus theatres. It was founded in 1979 with $210 pooled by Arnold Aprill, David Dillon, and Lorell Wyatt. For its current season, its 45th , it operates with a budget slightly over $200,000. It was the first theatre in the nation devoted to stage adaptations of literary material. There were so few theatres in Chicago at the time of its founding that at City Lit’s launch event, the founders were able to read a congratulatory letter they had received from Tennessee Williams.
For four decades and counting, City Lit has explored fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, songs, essays and drama in performance. A theatre that specializes in literary work communicates a commitment to certain civilizing influences—tradition imaginatively explored, a life of the mind, trust in an audience’s intelligence—that not every cultural outlet shares.
City Lit is located in the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church building at 1020 West Bryn Mawr Avenue. Its work is supported in part by the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events CityArts program. An Illinois not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt organization, City Lit keeps ticket prices below the actual cost of producing plays and depends on the support of those who share its belief in the beauty and power of the spoken written word.