As long as I'm doing booklists

[pegkerr]

Here is the list of banned books with the ones that I've read bolded.

Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Blubber by Judy Blume
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
Christine by Stephen King
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Cujo by Stephen King
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
I Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
My House by Nikki Giovanni
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

Gacked from mckitterick, and others.

Edited to add: I don't know where mckitterick got this list specifically. But here is the lists from the ALA of the most frequently banned books 1990-2000, and maybe it's based on that; I haven't checked it book-by-book, but there is a lot of overlap.

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I think getting one's book on that list would be an admirable goal. I can't fathom the reasons behind banning some of them.

Re:

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

That's ok, the last list like this that I saw had _Where's Waldo_ banned.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Bridge to Terebithia is really really worth the time. Really. Really really. And your girls may be coming up on the age for it, too.

Re: Bridge to Terabithia

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Second that.

It's an amazing story. Katherine Patterson came to speak at our college once, but unfortunately, I had something I couldn't get out of to go hear her.

What amuses me is how many of these books I read for school assignments.

Re: Bridge to Terabithia

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, several of those have been required reading in middle school and high school.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

"My Brother Sam Is Dead" is on the *banned* list? But...but... no!
::blinks::
lemme guess. it's violent, and presents an accurate view of war, and encourages children to make independent decisions that are perhaps morally troublesome and defy the status quo?
gah. I'm surprised they didn't put "The Clock" up either. (Collier brothers' other book -- How To Sabotage Factories With Dangerous Working Conditions")

please excuse me, I need to go bang my head into a wall. ::wanders off muttering::

[lapsus-0-calami.livejournal.com]

Banned by who?

Banned books

[aerden.livejournal.com]

Hm...By whom have these books been banned?

And why are they banning Judy Blume, when they should be banning

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (It's really bad)
The Gor series by John Noman - 'nuff said.
A Clockwork Orange - Ultra-violence doesn't get you banned?

I'll never understand these people.

Chantal

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Banned by whom from where? The list feels really squirrly to me.

B

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

Oh, pick up 1000 Years of Solitude sometime, by all means. Surely you've read The Night Kitchen. It's mostly a picture book. And The Headless Cupid was wonderful, it must've been banned because it talks about children inventing their own witchcraft

Re:

[jingdono.livejournal.com]

Let me guess ... banned for the little naked boy swimming in milk?

Weirded me out as a child. And made me demand cake.

[silvestra.livejournal.com]

-scrabbles down-

I have a goal for this year. I am going to read all the books on both "Banned Books" and "BBC's Big Read"-booklists. -nods-

But still I am amazed... These are banned by whom? I mean, Roald Dahl's books on Banned Books-list...

-shakes head-

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

Usually these books are banned because they're intended to be read by children and there's something that they don't want children to read. For example, there was a list I saw with the Laura Ingalls Wilder books banned, because of the use of the word 'Injun'.

And a while ago, Tamora Pierce was really proud of getting the Lioness books banned because of Alanna's anti-pregnancy charm.

Goofy, innit? I bet SOMEWHERE The Wild Swans is banned. :)

[anemonerose.livejournal.com]

Haha, interestingly enough, almost all of the books we had to read for American Studies and Senior Composition are on that list. *is amused*

*tongue firmly in cheek*

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I just looked up In the Night Kitchen. I couldn't imagine why such a lovely book was banned, and then I read that apparently there's a shot of a little boy baby with a *gasp!* visible penis.

Of course, I wouldn't want to have my children looking at such a thing. I think I'll put "Beavis and Butthead" on telly for them, instead. Yeah, my kids are grown/almost grown, but still. When they were younger, oh, their virgin eyes. Especially the boys. Because of course, they'd never seen a penis before.

[pameladean]

It's actually not astonishing that these books are both assigned in school classes and banned -- the second is in fact a result of the first, because the assignment gets the attention of parents and organizations who are shocked, shocked that every piece of literature in the world does not exactly fit their sensibilities.

Peg, the Paterson book is dynamite, it's wonderful. But wrenching; be waryk of it if you are feeling vulnerable. I believe it was protested against not because of the wrenching part but because a sympathetic character's parents are atheists and the character makes some comments about religion that, while approving, are Not In Line with the Proper Received Attitude.

Pamela

Re:

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The other reasons I've heard (from a friend who heard them in a kids' lit class at grad school) are that the book itself might be too upsetting (because God forbid kids should read something powerful), that one of the minor characters is abused, and that a child character has a crush on a teacher character. An innocent, fairly nonsexual puppy-crush. Sigh.

It is a wrenching book: each of us in my household read or reread it as an adult, all in the same week, and sat crying on the couch until the others found us. Even knowing what happens. Mark refers to it as "that bad bad book." And I ask him, "But you like it, don't you?" And he admits that he does.

Re:

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

I have an article around here somewhere, an interview with Katherine Paterson, that discusses the 'banning' issue. She says the reasons she was given for the protest included the use of the word 'Lord' as a mild exclamation (not so unusual when your characters are from the rural south), and the use of the word 'hell' (which is actually used as a noun, not a swear word). But she says she thinks the real reason some adults are uncomfortable with the book is because of...of what makes it wrenching. She doesn't think some parents want to even talk to their children about it.

I tend to agree. I used to share that article with my upper elementary students after we'd read the book, and they were flabbergasted and deeply offended--because most of them had already had to deal with the issue in their own lives, and mostly alone because their parents didn't want to talk with them about it. It opened up a lot of classroom discussion that the kids *needed*.

In ten years, I only had one parent object to it, and as she brought it in with 75 post its sticking out of this slim volume and told me she had gone through it with her pastor, I just tossed the poor, violated paperback in a drawer and gave her an alternate reading selection. Luckily, that parent was okay with that; she didn't try to stop *other people's kids* from reading the book--that, too me, would be censorship. I can respect a parent's wishes where her own kid is concerned, as long as she doesn't start trying to yank the book out of other kids' hands.
Um, sorry. I'll leap off the soapbox and back into lurkdom now.

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

Am always surprised to see that Robert Munsch book there and not Good Families Don't. The one on the list is about a little boy who has to go pee at the worst times, like right after they zip him into a snowsuit with many, many zippers and such. The second one I mentioned is about a family with a fart living upstairs in their house.

Not that I think any Robert Munsch books should be banned. He's a great storyteller. When she was small I took Nyssa to hear him a couple times. His stories are even better when he's telling them.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

I seriously need to read more banned books! On this list, I've only read these:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I've also seen the films based on "The Chocolate War" and "The Witches," which I assume would also be frowned-upon by the book-banners. (I've also seen films based on many of the books I've read.) Am a bit mystified as to how something called "Halloween ABC" ended up on the list. It sounds like Dr. Seuss' ABCs. Or is it supposed to be some sort of handbook for celebrating Halloween in the darkest possible way? Weird. And I assume that the banning of "In the Night Kitchen" is for the little boy's penis. Because we know they don't grow them until the night they are married. ;) Good grief and oh brother.

[hearuwhisper.livejournal.com]

Im amazed that "Snow Falling On Cedars" isn't on that list, and if it is, I have missed it. Most of those are AMAZING books, might I add.