It’s a new month, and a new category for the 2016 MMD Reading Challenge! This month we’re tackling “a book that was banned at some point.”
First off, what do we mean by “banned?” We’re talking a book that was removed from circulation at a library or school because somebody complained about it.
For this category, I’ve chosen twenty books that have been banned at some point for your TBR consideration. As you can see, these books have been banned—and continue to be removed from the shelves—for a wide variety of reasons. The American Library Association compiles these each year, and the accumulated stats make for very interesting reading.
Every year the American Library Association celebrates the freedom to read with Banned Books Week, coming in September. Get a jump on it by choosing your title now.
The ALA isn’t saying these books are for everyone, or that everyone should read them. They are saying readers and their families should have the opportunity to decide for themselves.
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Fahrenheit 451
Catch-22
Looking for Alaska
John Green's 2005 novel was the most challenged book of 2015; according to the American Library Association, the most frequently cited reasons for the requests to remove it from a school or library were "offensive language and "sexually explicit descriptions." John Green responded, "What usually happens with Looking for Alaska is that a parent chooses one page of the novel to send to an administrator and then the book gets banned without anyone who objects to it having read more than that one particular page.”
More info →Huck Finn
The Kite Runner
Of Mice and Men
The Handmaid’s Tale
Sons and Lovers
Cry, the Beloved Country
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
I'm reading this for the banned books category of the 2016 Reading Challenge. From the publisher: "Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot."
More info →Bridge to Terabithia
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: A Novel
The story is narrated by a 15-year-old British boy with autism, who is also a math genius, and adores puzzles. When his neighbor's dog is found dead in the backyard, impaled by a pitchfork, the boy is determined to get to the bottom of the crime. After a teacher tells him he should write something he'd like to read himself, he decides to write about this mystery, which is the book presented to us readers. When this book was pulled from school reading lists for concerns about profanity, the author responded "My suspicion is that more people will read it."
More info →A Wrinkle in Time
A Separate Peace
Brave New World
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Catcher in the Rye
To Kill A Mockingbird
In this 1960 classic, small-town attorney Atticus Finch attempts a hopeless defense of a black man unjustly accused of rape, and to teach his children, Scout and Jem, about the evils of racism. It's been a staple on high school reading lists for years (and I talked about my significant high school experience with Mockingbird here), but it enjoyed a fresh burst of publicity when its companion Go Set a Watchman was published this summer. (I'd love to be in the course that reads both, together.)
More info →The Color Purple
What are you reading for this category? I’ve marked my choice below. I can’t wait to hear what YOU pick.
68 comments
I have read 10 of these books. Some are new to me, others I just never read.
Have read several of these; and should probably read more. For the challenge I’m reading “Their Eyes were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston
I am reading Huckleberry Finn. I know I’ve read it once, probably in high school, but just don’t remember it. I’ve already read Farenheit 451, Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird. I have Bridge to Tarabithia on my shelf ready to read this year.
I think it’s interesting that I went to Catholic school and several of these books were on our reading lists. I even wrote an extensive paper on A Separate Peace during my Sophomore year that explored all of the symbolism in the book.
Things apparently haven’t changed! My son is going to be a sophomore at a Catholic school this fall, and A Separate Peace was his summer reading assignment. I must confess I’ve never heard of it before and my son was not impressed, but maybe I’ll have to pick it up for myself now.
I went to public school and quite a few of these were titles on my assigned lists as well!
I’ve read 12 of these, most of them in high school (1967-1971: I might be older than your average reader! ). “Are You There, God, It’s Me Margaret” was one I read in my college “Children’s Literature” class as part of my Elementary Education curriculum.
One of these books was “banned” in our house when it was on the sophomore English list for my youngest daughter. I read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, and it was beautifully written, but the graphic sexual content was NOT appropriate for my 15-year-old daughter. I read it, and sobbing, I told hubby to read a particular chapter and he read it and agreed with me. The teacher was very understanding and gave her something else to read. Yes, I was one of “those parents” who complained about books that were either trash/below grade level or inappropriate (only twice, actually) and my kids agreed and it made them stronger for having to buck the system.
The other book I complained about was brought to me by my middle daughter. THAT teacher complained to the two girls who weren’t reading the aforementioned trash/below grade level book that the book they chose to read was “long and too hard” because she had to read it too!!! Ahhh… memories… 🙂
What was the other book?
I was “Whispers From the Dead” by Joan Lowery Nixon. My daughter was in 8th grade and started to read this, and came to me saying it was too creepy and it made her uncomfortable. I took one look at the cover and knew it wasn’t exactly quality literature. And on the back, it said it was at a 5th grade reading level – for accelerated 8th graders? The head of the department said it was “one of our most popular and palatable books” – so do they choose the books according to what the kids LIKE?! They also told me that it had “multicultural value” because the girl who had been murdered in the family’s new house was speaking in Spanish! This was back in 1994.
So I chose “Up a Road Slowly” by Irene Hunt. Much more appropriate for 8th graders! 🙂 But the teacher complained because SHE had to read it!
I’m feeling a little smug that I’ve read about 12 of these, with Fahrenheit 451 on my shelf, currently. 😉
Though I just couldn’t finish Catch-22. Maybe I was in the wrong mindset, but I just hated that book!
I read Catch 22 in high school and loved it. I thought I was a rebel because all the other students were picking the typical books like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and To Kill a Mockingbird for their report and no one had ever heard of Catch 22.
It’s worth finishing then, I take it? I got stuck halfway through because felt very repetitive.
I just recently began your 2016 MMD Reading Challenge. I’m hoping to finish the list before the end of the year amidst my personal challenge of 52 New Books (new to me) in 2016. I’ve read several on this list and had no idea there are so many books that have been banned at one time or another. I think the first time I heard about banned books was from the movie Footloose and the book Slaughterhouse Five. It made me want to read it. Thanks for the list. I’ve been wanting to read several for the challenge.
I have read 6 of the books on the list, and my 9th grade son has to read Fahrenheit 451 and Of Mice and Men in his freshmen literature class. I was surprised to see some of these books as banned, I guess, because the ones I have read seemed like the tackled the subjects honestly and as tasteful as you can. I think of poor Lennie and George and how beautiful their relationship was, how protective George is over Lennie, even sacrificing each of them in his own way. I felt the same after reading Of Mice and Men, just as I did after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird, as a better, more sympathetic human. Banning books to me seems as trivial and uneducated as banning nudity in artwork. If you’re hung up on “perversion”, you’ve missed the point in the work.
That’s crazy that so many classic books have been banned at some point! And I’m also surprised at Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
I must like banned books since I’ve read almost all of these :)! The book that I chose for your challenge is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. It’s a book that I’ve had in my collection and it has been banned at some point. I was also looking at the ALA’s list of banned books and I am shocked that Looking For Alaska is at the #1 spot, which is one ahead of 50 Shades of Grey, but I guess it’s because LFA is for a younger audience?
Heather, I have owned this book for many years and just can get up the courage to actually read it. Best of luck to you!!
In Cold Blood is one of my favorite books ever. Well, I say that, but I’m not sure that it was my favorite, just that I couldn’t put it down and talked about it so much that seven of my colleagues read it as well! Enjoy!
I’ve read almost all of these, but one I haven’t is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, which has been on my TBR for quite some time. Perhaps it is time to finally dive in!
P.S. There was implied sexual content in A Separate Peace? Definitely flew right over my 8th-grader head.
P.P.S. I love when John Green goes on rants defending Looking For Alaska–he gets so fired up, as he should! That book is beautiful and people who think teenagers don’t already know about the “sexual content” explored in it are kidding themselves.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has long been a favorite of mine. Highly recommend!
Happy and surprised that I’ve read a lot of these. I’m going for “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” for my banned book.
I was blessed to have a Mom who fought to keep Judy Blume’s books in my school library. Along with “Are you there, God, it’s Me, Margaret?” was her book “Forever.” I read both, as did my Mom, and we discussed them together. Banning books gets my blood boiling 🙂
I allowed my kids to read widely and, as they got to be teenagers, at their own discretion. I am a librarian and you should know that sometimes “banned books” lists, often compiled by the The American Library Association are a bit disingenuous. They track “challenges”, so any time a parent or patron requests that a book be removed, they go on the list even if the school or library decided to keep the book.
Some challenges are ridiculous and over-controlling, but others result from librarians not paying attention to who their audience is and what is the content of the books they choose. I see all the books that go to all the schools in my district (about 30,000 kids) and I occasionally stick a post-it on titles warning the librarian about illustrations or content so they can determine whether it fits with their school collection (“we select, they censor” is a rather ironic librarian joke). They make the call on whether to keep it, but that way they aren’t blindsided by a parent’s complaints.
Handmaid’s Tale is on my list this summer.
“Some challenges are ridiculous and over-controlling, but others result from librarians not paying attention to who their audience is and what is the content of the books they choose.”
I think this is the point of many of these “bannings”. Not that the book is not worthily read, but perhaps not worthily read *right now*. I have read most of these books, and did very little censoring of my son’s reading – but I did put books that were age/developmentally appropriate in front of him for choosing. Huckleberry Finn is not the same as Tom Sawyer – what is profitably read at 10 (Tom Sawyer) might not be appropriate at 10 (Huckleberry Finn) – though it would be high on the list for a 14 or 15 year old, say.
There are several of these books that I would definitely not put in a primary or middle school library, but would include without hesitation in a high school library.
The main thing is to know content – and not to assume that just because one of an author’s books was wonderful and marvelous and worth including, that they *all* are.
Couldn’t agree more. Our daughter is an advanced reader but at 8 does not need to be reading some of the books in her eighth grade reading level. I’m also a sensitive reader so while I don’t force my likes/dislikes on our kids, I do keep in mind that a certain amount of guidance is appropriate at young ages.
Really interesting- was wondering about how such lists are made. Thanks!
“We select, they censor” – there is so much truth in that. When it comes right down to it, by virtue of the fact that no person and no library has infinite time, space or funds, we all select what to add to our collection or what to read, and we all censor what not to add or read. I have very mixed emotions about the whole topic. I don’t believe in getting rid of a book altogether – just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean no one else should read it. However, I do believe strongly in the idea that just because a book is edgy, or culturally significant, or socially relevant, doesn’t mean that it should be handed to just anyone. I object strongly to giving books to kids before they are old enough or mature enough to process the information in them. I also think that a library should, indeed, consider their community and its standards in selecting what to add to the collection. I live in a very small village that is fairly conservative, and the librarians at our local library take that into account as they decide which books to purchase. Censorship? Selection? in a way it’s both, and it’s appropriate.
As a result of my rebellious nature,. I sincerely enjoying picking up a banned book. I’ve read only a few because they are bit harder to come by on Overdrive, my main form of reading right now, but this is making me want to get back into it! On your list, I’ve read The Curious Incident (fabulous!), Looking For Alaska (meh), The Absolutely True Diary, Bridge to Terabithia, The Handmaid’s Tale (unpopular opinion: really didn’t enjoy this book), Harry Potter (What?! Why would this be band?), Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Catcher in the Rye. I’m excited to read more! I’ve got my eye on The Color Purple.
I’ve read 12 of the 20 – many of which were assigned books in school and enjoy a pretty permanent spot on my list of favorite reads.
I plan to read “The Color Purple” for my banned book, since that book has been sitting on my shelf waiting for my attention for a few months now. I’m new to the challenge, so Handmaid’s Tale is on my list to re-read (one of my all-time favorites!)
I read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for this category. It was a good book but I could totally see why someone may have thought it should be banned.
Ive read a few of these for the Reading Challenge, but To Kill a Mockinbird was my banned book choice. It was excellent, and very powerful. I read ‘Curious Case’ , ‘Handmaids Tale’ and ‘I know Why the Caged Bird sings’ too, and have Of Mice and Men lined up. I’ve read some modern books for the Challenge but so far I’ve enjoyed the classics the most.
I’ve been trying to decide what to read for this category. Thank you for the ideas!
I’ve only read 6 of these. I will read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
I listened to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian last year and loved it! It is a fantastic audiobook read by the author, which definitely adds to the experience. I lived and taught on a reservation for several years, and my students enjoyed the book, too.
my mum is a literature teacher and she doesn’t believe in censoring books. sometimes, i look back and wonder if maybe we were just amazing kids or if she was on to something. she let us read anything we felt we could read. i read 1984 in primary school (elementary), i read shakespeare before i turned 10, i read romance novels as early as fourth grade. she just felt that school was going to expose us to different people with different backgrounds and opinions and she wanted us to be well informed and grounded in well researched opinions. so she’d let me read anything i wanted and then we’d discuss it. it made so many things that teenagers were obsessed with just not that big of a deal to me.
so i’ve literally read every book on here except the first one.
My mom never censored our reading (or our music, for that matter), either. Maybe she figured that as long as we were reading something it was fine! I couldn’t imagine reading 1984 in elementary school, though. I did have to read it for my senior year of high school and I just don’t think I could have gotten through it such a young age (and I liked it pretty well), or even understood fully what was going on. The deepest thing I read at that age was Watership Down, and I’ve realized as an adult that I completely missed the meaning and probably ought to read it again.
My parents never restricted what I could read either. In part because they couldn’t keep up with me, but then it was trust. And for the reasons you listed above- the differing backgrounds, opinions, etc. An 800 page biography of Henry VIII when I was in 6th grade springs to mind- I don’t think it left out any detail, haha. I loved that they gave me such freedom. It may sound cliche, but it opened new worlds to me. The freedom they gave me when reading kept it fun and interesting through adulthood.
When I see that a book was banned, it actually makes me more curious to read it because I want to know why it was banned (and I can see I’m in good company!) I was also surprised to realize I only read a couple of these in school. Most of the ones I’ve read I read on my own. I actually read ‘Of Mice and Men’ for the “book you can read in a day” category (on accident – I didn’t realize how short it was until I was done!)
I checked off my banned book earlier this year, also sort of by accident, because I didn’t realize it had been banned until I saw it listed on my banned books coffee mug later on. I read ‘Madame Bovary,’ which I thought was just OK. I think I enjoyed a movie based on it – ‘Gemma Bovary’ – more than the book. The movie is a modern twist on the novel that is fascinating and a little eerie at the same time.
In any case, this is the first year I’m doing the Reading Challenge and I’m loving it so far. Thanks for the recommendations! I’m adding ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to my list.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime is one of my faves. And if I were ever on your podcast Cry the Beloved Country would be one of my 3 faves- such a powerful message in this book.
I’ve read several of these and have put several on my TBR list. Surprisingly my local library has all these titles.
I’ve read all but 5 of them – many at school. Great list of books – will have to read the rest on the list for sure.
Last month I read “The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.” While I don’t know that it has ever been banned, I find myself apologizing to certain people for the title when I tell them about it.
When I was looking at lists of banned books, I was surprised that some of the titles were on there. I found I had read quite a few without even realizing that there had ever been controversy. This month I’m going to try to read “Lord of the Flies” and “The Accidental Diary of a Part Time Indian.” They’ve both been on my TBR list for a long time. Maybe this is the month to finally check them off.
At the beginning of the year, I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and I loved it. It made me laugh. It made me cry. Bonus: it took me less than a day to read.
I’m REALLY thankful for an education that allowed me to read a lot of the books on this list. By contrast, I taught literature at a private high school that censored a lot of them. As a parent, I want to be proactive to exposing my kids to “questionable” things and giving them the opportunity to ask questions and wrestle with these issues in a safe context.
Part-Time Indian is one I am glad I read, but it wasn’t as striking as I expected. I’ve read quite a few of those listed here. I am truly glad that even though my parents were very overprotective in some ways, they didn’t censor my reading. I think I read Maya Angelou’s book in 8th grade – and yes, it is a little horrifying but it’s true to her story and her time. I don’t think opening your eyes to what happens in the world is the same as books filled with gratitude sex.
What an interesting list! I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale at least 15 years ago, and I’ll admit it was not my favorite either as one other reader commented. The Kite Runner was excellent – recommended reading. I’m finishing up A Tale of Two Cities then Great Expectations (from your ‘what I should have read in high school’ blog – kinda like Dickens), then I’ll check out the Curious Incident of the Dog – I’m enticed!
For me the definition of a ‘banned book’ is one which a government has not allowed to be read/sold/imported/printed at all within its boundaries. Merely removing a book from US school library shelves (highly variable across the country anyway) doesn’t ban it – any interested family can still buy it off Amazon or in a bookstore.
So I have been looking for books that were at some point prohibited by a national government- there is a list on Wikipedia, though it may not be very accurate or complete. My choice is Nadine Gordimer’s ‘July’s People’, written 1981 and banned under the South African apartheid regime. Very powerful and thought-provoking.
I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, for my banned book. Some people thought it was too “political” and had some drug use and language. I read it in April for my personal 2016 Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge (its call number is 305.56909).
Love the idea of a Dewey Decimal challenge!
One Reading Challenge wasn’t enough for me! I’m a librarian and I love narrative nonfiction. I’m currently reading Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finley, which is really good. Next year I’m thinking of giving myself a Fiction Genre challenge to broaden myself.
I need to know more about this Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge….please….
I just set it up for myself; it’s not a “thing.” I read a different Dewey Decimal range each month: 000s in January, 100s in February, 200s in March, 300s in April, 400s in May, 500s in June, 600s in July, 700s in August, 800s in September, 900s in October. For November I will read Biographies, and Fiction in December. Of course I read other things in each month also.I have it on Pinterest under Dewey Decimal Challenge if you want to see what the Dewey numbers stand for and what I’ve read for the challenge.
Oh I’m very familiar with Dewey and I love this idea!! I’m always interested in different kinds of reading challenges. Very cool, thanks for sharing! Yes, I would love to see it on Pinterest. I tried searching but it pulled up too many results to adequately check.
I just discovered this site and I’m ready for the challenge. I went to school in the forties and fifties and escaped “reading lists”. We had book reports assigned but were free to choose our own books. Now, I wish that I had required reading as I regret not having the experience of reading these books earlier. I have read many of them in later life but have not read Catch 22. Then I’ll read To Kill A Mockingbird as a book that I have been meaning to read. Thanks for your ideas.
I’ve read 6 of these and have a few of the others on my TBR list. I am actually surprised by the fact that some of these books are listed.
I am a librarian in a parochial school, grades K-8. I refused the purchase a book a student requested for the library on the basis of low quality and low morals. She accused me of banning the book. It took a long time to explain to her that while I was technically banning the book from the library, in no way was I telling her not to read it. I just was not going to use my (pitifully small) budget to buy that book. I rarely tell a student that he or she shouldn’t read a certain book, but that I simply won’t provide it to them. Does this mean that I am banning books?
On another end of that is a question I would throw out there: A third-grade boy in our school read Tom Sawyer. (He is a very sheltered child.) He didn’t like it. Should I have allowed him to read that book at his age? He will enjoy that book when he is older, if he chooses to read it again.
Reading your list made me realize there must be a bit of rebel in me. I had no idea I had read so many banned books! Also, Judy Blume as a banned author?!?! Who is next, Margaret Wise Brown? 🙂
I have read many of these books and enjoyed them. I just saw “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” on stage and would be interested to read the book as well.
I’ve read the majority of these books and enjoyed most. However, ‘The Curious Incident . . .’ and ‘. . . Part-Time Indian’ should be banned just for their stereotypes of autism and native Americans.
We did And Then There Were None in homeschool last year and I was surprised to find that Christie regularly gets banned from schools now because of inherent racism. I opted to teach the book and the racism controversy.
This kind of thing profoundly irritates me, because I strongly believe that in reading any book, one should always keep in mind when the book was written. Books are not written in a vacuum; they are always, very much, a product of their times and the life of the person who wrote them. Books are a part of the history that birthed them. We cannot ignore this and we must be careful not to judge a book by the standards of the society that exists 30 or 50 or 100 years after it was written. It’s not fair to the author or the book, and it makes us miss out on understanding our history better and perhaps deprives us of the experience of reading a book that is, in other ways, quite good. It also means ignoring an opportunity for education and enlightenment.
I completely agree. ATTWN gets particular criticism because of the poem that the book is based on (Ten Little Indians) and the original titles. But none of that changes the fact that it is one of the best mysteries of all time. And obviously that endures since my 15-year old son is now hooked. He followed it up with Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Exactly!! Such a remarkable story. All her books are great but that is one of the best….as are the other two you mentioned! I also especially like Death on the Nile and The Mirror Crack’d.
I have read 17 of these books. I plan to read the Blume book. The other two that I have not read yet are new titles for me; I probably will read those too! (I seem to like banned books.)