Have You Read This Book?

Stephen King: "A proposal to ban books should always be given the greatest consideration. It's a scary idea, especially in a society which has been built on the ideas of free choice and free thought."   The Bangor (ME) Daily News, 1992


Banned Books Week is sponsored in part by the American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Writers, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and PEN American Center.


                  Banned Books Week *** September 21-27                        


Top 10 Challenged/Banned Books of  2013

Reasons for the challenges include offensive language, drugs/smoking, racism, violence, and being unsuitable for age group.

1. Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
4. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone
7. Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
10. Bone by Jeff Smith


Frequently Banned or Challenged Classics 

1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
4. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
6. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
7. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
10. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 


Authors Frequently Banned or Challenged

Mark Twain
J.D. Salinger
Judy Blume
Robert Cormier
Harper Lee
Maurice Sendak
Ernest Hemingway
John Irving
Margaret Atwood
Isabel Allende


Frequently Banned or Challenged Books, 2000-2009 

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Alice series by Phyllis Naylor
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes

The American Library Association provided the banned/challenged information.


In honor of Banned Books Week, I'll be reading Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." 

                                                      *****


This post is dedicated to two journalists, in memory of their sacrifice:
Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.