A book that was banned at some point

The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

Many of you call this the best book you ever read. Hosseini's critically acclaimed, bestselling novel is about an unlikely friendship between two boys growing up in Afghanistan: one from a privileged family, one the son of that family's servant.

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're picturing Landry and Tim Riggins discussing this novel on the Dillon High School bleachers. This is Steinbeck's story of two friends searching for work and the American Dream, and it's been repeatedly banned and continues to be challenged today for a wide variety of reasons: profanity, vulgarity, sexual themes, racism, an "anti-business attitude," and euthanasia.

The Handmaid’s Tale

by Margaret Atwood

From the publisher: "The Handmaid's Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best."

Sons and Lovers

Since Lawrence published his first work, his novels have been censored early and often. Sons and Lovers was banned immediately upon publication and frequently thereafter for sex, and lots of it, with frequent nods to Freud and Oedipus. This novel currently sits at #64 on the American Library Association's list of the most challenged books of the 20th century.

Cry, the Beloved Country

by Alan Paton

From the publisher: "An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty."

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

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."

Bridge to Terabithia

by Katherine Paterson

At its core, this is a story about a beautiful friendship between two fifth grade kids who seemed so real that my ten-year-old self could hardly believe Jess and Leslie existed only on the page. I found myself wishing I had my own magical kingdom in the woods I could escape to, and I bawled my eyes out at the end. A moving, multi-layered story about the beauty of childhood and the searing pain of loss.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: A Novel

by Mark Haddon

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."

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

L’Engle begins her groundbreaking science fiction/fantasy work with the famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night,” and plunges you headlong into the world of the Murray family, who must travel through time to save the universe. I wanted to be Meg, of course. Wrinkle is the first—and most famous—of the Time Quintet, but I read them all, again and again.

A Separate Peace

by John Knowles

I read this book in high school English class, but it's been removed from school reading lists for profanity, difficult subject matter, and implied sexual content. Set at a boys' boarding school during the early years of WWI, this book portrays the dark side of adolescence, showing two young friends waking up to the jaded reality of the adult world as the nation likewise was waking up to the reality of its deeply troubled era.

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

This novel, originally published in 1932, has been banned repeatedly over the years, right up to the present time. Irony alert: the problem with banning a dystopian novel that envisions a totalitarian future world where literary content is strictly regulated is that it provides even more Brave New World discussion fodder delighted English teachers. While it's been removed from many libraries and reading lists, it still makes frequent appearances on others.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

In the first of her six autobiographies, Angelou tells the haunting story of her childhood in the American South of the 1930s. Her poetic prose is incredible, and the story is by turns heartwarming ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") and utterly heartbreaking. Angelou's lilting voice brings her powerful, touching story to life in the audiobook.

The Catcher in the Rye

Salinger's 1951 novel introduced us to Holden Caulfield, who has served as the prime symbol of adolescent angst ever since. This American classic has remained on the American Library Association's "most challenged works" list for years. In 1960, a Tulsa high school teacher was fired for assigning the work: his job was reinstated, but the book stayed off the reading list.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

by Judy Blume

At BEA Elin Hilderbrand said she wasn't much of a re-reader, except for this book, which she read a million times in junior high. Add Audible narration for $4.49.

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's slim sci-fi/fantasy novel revolves around a fireman who hates his job set in the saddest of dystopian settings: a future with no books. Firemen start the fires in Bradbury's future, to burn any and all books as they are found. One of these books is the Bible, which is what most often triggers the censorship. The book has been repeatedly banned over the years, which is ironic, given that the book itself is about book-banning. When it was published, Bradbury was outspoken about the fact that he in fact had the growing influence of television over Americans in mind when he wrote it.

Catch-22

by Joseph Heller

This is the story of a WWII bomber named Yossarian who is desperate to evade the war but trapped by the military rule from which the novel takes its title: a pilot is believed to be insane if he continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he requests to be excused because they're dangerous then he's obviously sane enough to fly. This classic 1961 war novel was banned for "indecent" language, and frequently appears on "best of the century" reading lists.

Looking for Alaska

by John Green

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.”

Huck Finn

by Mark Twain

Hemingway had strong words for this novel, saying, "It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." And yet it was banned just one month after its publication, and the American Library Association says it continues to be one of the most challenged books in U. S. schools because of its charged use of the "n" word to engage slavery.

To Kill A Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

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.)

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

An incredible modern classic. From The Nation: “The Color Purple is about the struggle between redemption and revenge. And the chief agency of redemption, Walker is saying, is the strength of the relationships between women: their friendships, their love, their shared expression."

A book that was banned at some point

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