So, after reading in the news this morning that Sarah Palin tried to force her town librarian to ban books that 'some voters might find objectionable, here's a list of books banned at one time or another in the US. (I originally wanted to list the ones Palin tried to ban, but couldn't find a list anywhere). Books I have read are bold. Books I have loved* are bold and italicized. Books I'm gonna run out and get from my library are just italicized.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio (I've read bits of this -- plus all of 'The Women's Decameron,' which is awesome.)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell (wait, that's not by Judy Blume?? O! All my memories of fourth grade are cast into doubt.)
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (does it count if I just skimmed for dirty bits?)
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective (remind me to tell you my 'the first time I read the word anus' story).
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles (I might have loved it, but I took the line about 'sarcasm being the last refuge of the weak' a little personally).
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff (Despite jr high rumors to the contrary, I don't read dictionaries in their entirety just for fun -- though the occasional page or two can be an awesome way to dither away an hour. Also, this was banned? wtf?)
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
*My criteria for whether or not I've loved a book? If I automatically think, "Omigod yes" after reading the title, that's love. Anything less is a strong like.
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6 comments:
The Great Gilly Hopkins is wonderful. Harsh, but beautiful. Probably not great to read with your class until you're tenured (and never to read with first graders), but you should read it.
good stuff.
Banned Book Week is the high holiday of librarians. Did you know the library at St. Joseph's school banned Harry Potter?
Momeester
Remind me to tell you my on first looking into "The Color Purple" story.
I read (and just posted) this list (I think it's exactly the same) as the list of library books which Ms. Palin wanted to have banned. It's on my blog at http://www.annienewman.typepad.com/annies_day/
My first reaction was "My Friend Flicka? WTF?"
http://blogs.ala.org/oif.php?cat=268
That will get you to this years top ten.
Banned book week starts Sept 27!!
Yes, Lady Chatterly's Lover does count if you skimmed it for the dirty bits.
And please tell us your 'the first time I read the word anus' story - I could do with a good giggle.
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