Banned Books




 Joseph Brodsky: "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading."
                                                                                                                                 


Celebrate literary freedom by reading a banned or challenged book. Banned Books Week is September 22-28, 2013. According to the American Library Association,  the top reasons given for a book to be challenged are sex, profanity and racism. Most of the challenges occur in schools or school libraries.

This is a list from ALA of just a few of the books challenged in 2012-2013:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Challenged in Guilford County, NC.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. Challenged in Easton, PA.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Challenged in Troy, PA.
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson. Marked for removal in Davis, UT schools.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. Pulled but returned to shelf in Brevard County, FL.
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. Removed from Katy, TX school district reading list.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Removed but returned as assigned reading in Traverse City, MI schools. Challenged in McPherson, KS high school.

At least 46 of the top 100 novels chosen by the Radcliffe Publishing Course have been challenged, according to the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the ALA.

Are you looking for a banned or challenged book to read? Try one of these frequently challenged books. In honor of Banned Books Week, I'll be reading "1984" by George Orwell.

The Great Gatsby/ F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984/ George Orwell
Catch-22/ Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath/ John Steinbeck
The Color Purple/ Alice Walker
The Call of the Wild/ Jack London
In Cold Blood/ Truman Capote
Sophie's Choice/ William Styron
Naked Lunch/ William S. Burroughs
Native Son/ Richard Wright
Lord of the Rings/ J.R.R. Tolkien
Rabbit Run/ John Updike
Gone With the Wind/ Margaret Mitchell
Invisible Man/ Ralph Ellison 
Lovely Bones/ Alice Sebold
Bridge to Terabithia/ Katherine Paterson
Harry Potter (series)/ J.K. Rowling
Forever/ Judy Blume
Fahrenheit 451/ Ray Bradbury
A Wrinkle in Time/ Madeline L'Engle
The Perks of Being a Wallflower/ Stephen Chbosky

If you'd like to know more about banned or challenged books, here are three helpful websites:

www.ala.org
www.deletecensorship.org
www/tjcenter.org   (Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression)
                 
                                                               Happy Reading!