"10 Best" Banned Books

Chandos the Red · Sep 26, 2010

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A list of the 10 best banned books. A few of these should be required, rather than banned, IMHO. In fact, a few of them are required:

Fahrenheit 451
To Kill a Mockingbird
Brave New World
The Catcher in the Rye

http://www.good.is/post/the-10-best...-challenged-books-list/page:1#slideshow_49980

Rahkir · Sep 26, 2010

I was surprised by a few of those... particularly The Giver and A Wrinkle in Time. I don't recall anything in either of those books which could be offensive.

It always makes me sad to hear of book burnings or bannings; especially those of such high quality.

Caradhras · Sep 27, 2010

The Lord of the Rings was banned by Soviet authorities and it's still banned/burned by religious nuts.

nior · Sep 27, 2010

The Bible has been banned in several countries, even until now.

LKD · Sep 28, 2010

A Wrinkle In Time fiddled with Christian theology a bit, and some die hard loonies (not that I'm judgemental!) take offense to any such stuff.

LKD · Oct 1, 2010

sorry for the double post, but that site was wonky -- it kept crashing my Explorer window. Would someone be so kind as to post the 10 titles here?

Morgoth · Oct 1, 2010

Sure, here you are.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

You might think that banning a book about the burning of books reflects especially poorly on those who propose doing so. You are correct.
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The beloved story of coming of age in the Jim Crow South pits the innocence of youth against the injustice of institutionalized racism. It possesses a clear sense of morality, but its use of racial epithets has made it a target of parental outrage for decades.
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The Giver by Lois Lowry

Seemingly Utopian futures tend to disappoint. In the case of The Giver, a society purports to have eliminated all pain and memories of it, but one boy is tasked with carrying knowledge of all the world's pain, suffering, and love on his shoulders. A fun fact is that this probably inspired the Weezer song My Name Is Jonas, but even that won't stop parents from calling for its removal from school reading lists.
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

More dystopia! Successfully banned in Ireland and the United States, the book imagines a terrifying view of the future where hedonism and passivity are commonplace. Whereas 1984 worried that the people of the future would be denied freedom to think for themselves because of the threat of pain, Brave New World fears that people will willingly surrender freedom through apathy and the pursuit of pleasure.
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Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Profanity. Check. Sex. Check. Aliens. Check. Multiple dimensions. Check. Heartbreaking, inventive critique of war in modern life? Check, check, check. Amusingly, references to religion gave detractors an opportunity to ban it using an interpretation of the Establishment Clause, which, you have to admit, is kind of clever.
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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

So long as Holden Caulfield has been venturing into the city and besmirching adults as phonies, he has been the subject of book bans.
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Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Nobel Prize winners are not immune to having a book banned or challenged, even when said book offers one of the most enduring and creative portraits of racial identity in the 20th century.
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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

That a writer could think so highly of children as to craft a story that prominently features a folding of the fabric of space and time is a beautiful thing. And few stories offer as compelling a response to childhood experiences of isolation as this one. Sadly, a few people find it blasphemous.
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Who is really crazy: the mental patient, or the parents who thought this treasure was unfit for their children to read?
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Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle

You probably remember Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for its top notch artwork and tender story. This time around, Carle's story of an artist as a creator, which includes a somewhat abstractly drawn nude couple in a setting like the Garden of Eden, got parents predictably perturbed.
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I read Catcher in the Rye this summer. Would it be banned for its anti-authoritarian stance? I can't think of any other reason.

Chandos the Red · Oct 1, 2010

Fahrenheit 451
To Kill a Mockingbird
Brave New World
The Catcher in the Rye
The Giver
Slaughterhouse-Five
Song of Solomon
A Wrinkle in Time
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Draw Me a Star

I read Catcher in the Rye this summer. Would it be banned for its anti-authorian stance? I can't think of any other reason.
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I would guess because Holden intends to visit a prostitute, even though it doesn't work out for him. I can't think of any other reason either.

Morgoth · Oct 2, 2010

I looked up the list of reasons to ban a Catcher in the Rye:

- profanity. Now I remember: Holden thinks that everything is a goddamn something.
- not appropriate behavior for a teenager
- "premoted (sic) premarital sex, homosexuality, and perversion, [...] and 'explicitly pornographic' and 'immoral'."
- Communist plot
- 'anti-white'
- 'centered around negative activity.'

Got to admire the reference to John Lennon, since it was this book that led Mark Chapman to kill him. (Guns don't kill people, books kill people ). I however suspect that the same people who want this book banned, are not the ones who mourn for his death.

LKD · Oct 5, 2010

OK define "ban" please. If Catcher was on the reading list for grades 11 or 12, I'd have no problem with it. if it were on the curriculum for grade 8 or so, I might want that decision looked at. That doesn't mean i want it banned per say, just studied at an appropriate level.

or does ban mean "not in the library period"?

Chandos the Red · Oct 5, 2010

The novel has long ignited disapproval, and it was the most frequently banned book in schools between 1966 and 1975. Even before that time, however, the work was a favorite target of sensors. In 1957, Australian Customs seized a shipment of the novels that had been presented as a gift to the government by the U.S. ambassador. The books were later released, but Customs had made its point that the book contained obscene language and actions that were not appropriate behavior for an adolescent. In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the book to an eleventh-grade English class. The teacher was [sic] appealed and was reinstated by the school board, but the book was removed from use in the school."

"The following year in Oklahoma City, the novel became the focus of a legislative hearing in which a locally organized censorship group sought to stop the Mid-Continent News Company, a book wholesaler, from carrying the novel. Members of the group parked a 'Smutmobile' outside the capital building during the hearing and displayed the novel with others. As a result of public pressure, the wholesaler dropped the critcized books from its inventory. In 1963 a delegation of parents of high school students in Columbus, Ohio, asked the school board to ban Catcher in the Rye, BRAVE NEW WORLD and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for being 'anti-white' and 'obscene'."

"After a decade of quiet, objections arose again in 1975 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and the novel was removed from the suggested reading list for an elective course entitled 'Searching for Values and Identity Through Literature'. Based on parents' objections to the language and content of the book, the school board voted 5-4 to ban the book. The book was later reinstated in the curriculum when the board learned that the vote was illegal because they needed a two-thirds vote for removal of the text."

"In 1977 parents in Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey, challenged the assignment of the novel in an American literature class. They charged that the book included considerable profanity and 'filthy and profane' language that premoted premarital sex, homosexuality, and perversion, as well as claiming that it was 'explicitly pornographic' and 'immoral'. After months of controversy, the board ruled that the novel could be read in the advanced placement class for its universal message, not for its profanity, but they gave parents the right to decide whether or not their children would read it."

"In 1978 parents in Issaquah, Washington, became upset with the rebellious views expressed in the novel by Holden Caulfield and with the profanity he uses. The woman who led the parents' group asserted that she had counted 785 uses of profanity, and she alleged that the philosophy of the book marked it as part of a Communist plot that was gaining a foothold in the schools, 'in which a lot of people are used and may not even be aware of it.' The school board voted to ban the book, but the decision was later reversed when the three members who had voted against the book were recalled due to illegal deal-making. In 1979, the Middleville, Michigan, school district removed the novel from the required reading list after parents objected to the content."

"Objections in [sic] the novel have been numerous throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1980, the Jacksonville-Milton School libraries in North Jackson, Ohio, removed the book, as did two high school libraries in Anniston, Alabama. In 1982, school officials removed the book from all school libraries because it contained 'excess vulgar language, sexual scenes, and things concerning moral issues.' In 1983, parents in Libby, Montana, challenged the assignment of the book in the high school due to the 'book's contents.' Deemed 'unacceptable' and 'obscene', the novel was banned from use in English classes at Freeport High School in De Funiak Springs, Florida, in 1985, and it was removed from the required reading list in 1986 in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, Senior High School because of sexual references and profanity. In 1987, parents and the local Knights of Columbus chapter in Napoleon, North Dakota, complained about profanity and sexual references in the book, which was banned from a required sophomore English reading list. Parents of students attending Linton-Stockton (Indiana) High School challenged the book in 1988 because it 'undermines morality', and profanity was the reason for which the book was banned from classrooms in the Boron, California, high school in 1989."

"The challenges to the novel have continued well into the 1990s. In 1991, the novel was challenged at Grayslake (Illinois) Community High School for profanity, and students in Jamaica High School in Sidell, Illinois, cited profanities and the depiction of premarital sex, alcohol abuse and prostitution as the basis for their 1992 challenge. Three other major challenges to the novel occurred in 1992. The novel was challenged and removed from the Waterloo, Iowa, public schools and the Duval County, Florida, public school libraries because of the 'lurid passages about sex' and profanity, while a parent in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, objected to the book because it was 'immoral' and contained profanity. In 1993, parents in the Corona-Norco (California) School District protested the use of the novel as a required reading, because it was 'centered around negative activity.' The school board voted to retain the novel but instructed teachers to select alternative readings if students objected to it. The novel was challenged but retained for use in select English classes at New Richmond (Wisconsin) High School in 1994, but it was removed as mandatory reading from the Goffstown, New Hampshire, schools the same year because parents charged that it contained 'vulgar words' and presented the main character's 'sexual exploits'."
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In 1960 a teacher was fired for assigning the novel in class; he was later reinstated.[26] Between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States.[27] In 1981, it was both the most censored book and the second most taught book in public schools in the United States.[28] According to the American Library Association, The Catcher in the Rye was the tenth most frequently challenged book from 1990–1999.[9] It was one of the ten most challenged books of 2005[29] and although it has been off the list for three years, it has reappeared in the list of most challenged books of 2009.[30] The challenges generally begin with vulgar language, citing the novel's use of words like ****[31] and goddamn,[32] with more general reasons including sexual references,[33] blasphemy, undermining of family values[32] and moral codes,[34] Holden's being a poor role model,[35] encouragement of rebellion,[36] and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity.[34] Often, the challengers have been unfamiliar with the plot itself.[27] Shelley Keller-Gage, a high school teacher who faced objections after assigning the novel in her class, noted that the challengers "are being just like Holden... They are trying to be catchers in the rye."[32] A reverse effect has been that this incident caused people to put themselves on the waiting list to borrow the novel, when there were none before.[37]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye

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