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| Banned Books Week September 30 through October 6, 2012 |
This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week which celebrates our freedom to read. Every year objections are filed about books containing subjects such as sex, profanity and racism as an attempt to have them removed from school and library shelves. Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association and calls attention to those books challenged, restricted, removed or banned each year. Bill Moyers and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers are the honorary Co-chairs this year and here is what Mr. Moyers has to say about Banned Books.
Listed below are some of the books included on the 2010-2011 list as reported by the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
My Mom's Having a Baby by Dori Hillestad Butler
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Koran
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
ttyl by Lauren Myracle
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Check out Banned Books Week.org or American Library Assocation for the list of frequently challenged books and why they have been challenged. There has been quite a few classics challenged over the years.
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts.
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
Visit Banned and Challenged Classics to see why these classic books have been challenged.
Read a banned book this week and support our freedom to read.
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Ha ha! I see that a Lauren Myracle book is on the list of banned books. My post this week has a rant against her. I haven't read that particular book that is mentioned in your list, but I can definitely imagine why some parents might want her books banned from their children's libraries!
ReplyDeleteI've read 28 of the banned books on the Top 100 list. I read banned books!
ReplyDeleteI finished 50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days-and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance! by Dean Karnazes with Matt Fitzgerald
ReplyDeleteDean ran 50 marathons in 50 days AND each one was in a different state!
I'll be reviewing a banned book Wednesday so I'll link up when it goes live.
dang, I've only read 7 of the top 100. I do own most of them, just haven't read them yet.
DeleteMy book this week was shortlisted for the Book ... and well worth it.
ReplyDeleteO.K. that was supposed to be "shortlisted for the BOOKER"
DeleteI think I've read quite a few of those banned classics.;-)
ReplyDeleteAfter many classics, I need a frivolous and fun book to read, *The World of Downton Abbey*. Actually, I learned quite a bit about the World War I time period as a result!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading a book that will be a movie later this year that got great reviews already - The Silver Linings Playbook, which stars Bradley Cooper....yup.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin,
ReplyDeleteI've got my Wk.#38 and Wk.#39 posted. Just didn't make it to the Mr. Linky.
Have a great day!
Sherrie
Just Books
http://sherriesbooks.blogspot.com/
Banned Books drive me nuts -- we can watch all the crap we want to on TV, but when it comes to books they want to ban the most ridiculous things. I have read 20 of the books on the banned list.
ReplyDelete