Go Ask Alice has been a frequent target of censorship challenges due to its inclusion of profanity and references to runaways, drugs, sex, and rape.[10] Alleen Pace Nilsen wrote that in 1973, Go Ask Alice was "the book that teens wanted to read and that adults wanted to censor" and that the censors "felt the book did more to glorify sex and drugs than to frighten kids away from them."[2] Challenges began in the early 1970s following the initial publication of the book, and continued at a high rate through the ensuing decades.[10]
Some challenges resulted in the removal of the book from libraries, or in parental permission being required for a student to check the book out of a library.[10] According to The New York Times, in the 1970s it became common practice for school libraries to keep Go Ask Alice off library shelves and make it available to students only upon request, a practice that was criticized as being a form of censorship.[36] A 1982 survey of school librarians across the United States, co-sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, found that Go Ask Alice was the most frequently censored book in high school libraries.[61][62]
Decades after its original publication, Go Ask Alice became one of the most challenged books of the 1990s and 2000s. On the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s, Go Ask Alice was ranked at number 25;[63] on the ALA list compiled for the 2000s, it rose to position 18.[64]
The likely authoring of the book by one or more adults rather than by an unnamed teenage girl has not been an issue in censorship disputes.[4][10] Nilsen and others have criticized this on the basis that the dishonesty of presenting a probable fake memoir to young readers as real should raise greater concerns than the content.[2][26][44]
