This week is Banned Books Week,
where librarians and other organizations highlight the books that have
been subjected to threats of censorship – and actual censorship – in
schools, libraries and nations around the globe. Among the frequently
challenged books include classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and popular books like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Many are books that you really ought to read, like Cat’s Cradle or Harry Potter. But then, you probably have read them – either because your school made you or because all your friends pushed them on you.
Here is a sample from the list of books that were banned at one time or nother . . .
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley, 1965
Beloved, Toni Morrison, 1987
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown, 1970
The Call of the Wild, Jack London, 1903
Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1961
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, 1953
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway, 1940
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
Howl, Allen Ginsberg, 1956
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1966
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, 1906
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, 1855
Moby-Dick; or The Whale, Herman Melville,1851
Native Son, Richard Wright, 1940
Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, 1971
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane, 1895
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred C. Kinsey, 1948
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein, 1961
A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams, 1947
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, 1963
The Words of Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez, 2002
Fight back against censorship - pick up one and have an enjoyable read!
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