May Meeting: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book's narrator is a nine-year-old boy named Oskar Schell. In the story, Oskar discovers a key in a vase that belonged to his father, who died a year earlier in the 9/11 attacks. The discovery inspires Oskar to search all around New York for information about the key and closure following his father's death.

Reasons for challenges:
* The book was #55 on the ALA's Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books list for 2010-2019. It has been banned in multiple school districts across America for most of its time in print. Reasons vary, but the consensus largely centers around several passages in the book that were “extremely vulgar detailing sexual acts.”
* Challenged in the Richland (WA) School District in 2011 for "profanity, sex, and descriptions of violence."
* Removed from the Mattoon (IL) High School curriculum in 2016 because of “its use of lewd and possibly offensive materials.”

Hope to see you there!