Tag Archives: banned classics

Do you read banned and/or challenged books? Here are 50

Posted on January 8, 2023 | 8 comments

Hello, Everyone!

I’ve been thinking about the banning of books again, and that there is a steady increase in the number of books people are trying to prevent others from reading. It seems to me that by this time there would be less of that instead of more.

Below I have made a list of 50 of the books I’ve read that are/were banned and/or challenged, although I not likely knew it at the time of reading. They are in no particular order.

  1. The Holy Bible
  2. 1984 – by George Orwell
  3. The Catcher in the Rye – by J.D. Salinger
  4. Catch-22 – by Joseph Heller (I did not finish this one but will try again later)
  5. The Great Gatsby – by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  6. Brave New World – by Aldous Huxley
  7. To Kill a Mockingbird – by Harper Lee
  8. Of Mice and Men – by John Steinbeck
  9. The Color Purple – by Alice Walker
  10. Fahrenheit 451 – by Ray Bradbury
  11. Lord of the Flies – by William Golding
  12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – by Ken Kesey
  13. Animal Farm – by George Orwell
  14. Their Eyes Were Watching God – by Zora Neale Hurston
  15. The Bluest Eye – by Toni Morrison
  16. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl – by Anne Frank
  17. Heart of Darkness – by Joseph Conrad
  18. The Alchemist – by Paulo Coelho
  19. The Hate U Give – by Angie Thomas
  20. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – by Sherman Alexie
  21. And Tango Makes Three – by Peter Parnell & Justin Richardson (picture book)
  22. A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo – by Jill Twiss (picture book)
  23. I am Jazz – by Jessica Herthel (picture book)
  24. Skippyjon Jones series – by Judy Schachner (picture books; I read four)
  25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – by Mark Haddon
  26. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afganistan – by Jeanette Winter (picture book)
  27. The Adventures of Captain Underpants series – by Dav Pilkey (picture books; I read one)
  28. Hunger Games series – by Suzanne Collins
  29. Where the Wild Things Are – by Maurice Sendak (picture book)
  30. Where the Sidewalk Ends – by Shel Silverstein
  31. The Grapes of Wrath – by John Steinbeck
  32. Hop on Pop – by Dr. Seuss (picture book)
  33. The DaVinci Code – by Dan Brown
  34. A Time to Kill – by John Grisham
  35. Water for Elephants – by Sara Gruen
  36. For Whom the Bell Tolls – by Ernest Hemingway
  37. The Amazing Bone – by William Steig (picture book that received 4 honours)
  38. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – by Mark Twain
  39. Bridge to Terabithia – by Katherine Paterson
  40. Girl With a Pearl Earring – by Tracy Chevalier
  41. Invisible Man – by Ralph Ellison
  42. Gone With the Wind – by Martha Mitchell
  43. The Call of the Wild – by Jack London
  44. Charlotte’s Web – by E.B. White
  45. The Lorax – by Dr. Seuss (picture book)
  46. Harriet the Spy – by Harriet Fitzhugh
  47. James and the Giant Peach – by Roald Dahl
  48. The Giving Tree – by Shel Silverstein (picture book)
  49. Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice – by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard (picture book)
  50. In the Night Kitchen – by Maurice Sendak (picture book)

Almost all of the above I have no problem with, although I can’t say I enjoyed all of them.

Which of the above books have you read? Do you agree with the ban or challenge?

To your knowledge, have you read any not listed here that have been banned or challenged?

Thanks so much for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

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Would you knowingly write a potentially ‘banned’ book?

Posted on August 23, 2010 | 2 comments

I have been thinking more about the writing process, since NaNoWriMo is coming up in November and I probably will participate in that.  I have been reading more, too, and you will see the updating of ‘my “have read” book list’ page.

In wondering about banned books and those that are challenged – the hope of the challenger being that the book will be banned – I posted a list that I found of some of those classics:

Banned and Challenged Classics:

  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
  10. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
  11. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  13. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  14. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  16. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  17. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
  18. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  20. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  22. Native Son by Richard Wright
  23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  24. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  25. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
  26. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  27. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
  28. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  29. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
  30. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  31. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
  32. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  33. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  34. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  35. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
  36. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
  37. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
  38. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  39. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  40. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
  41. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  42. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
  43. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
  44. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
  45. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
  46. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

I would think that books with that reputation would get an increase in sales, thanks to the curious.  What do you think?  Have you read any of those books, and if so do you understand why the book is on this list? Do you agree?

Let’s take this a little further.  Have you ever written a book that has been challenged when it was not your intention for it to receive that kind of publicity? Or, do you have a subject burning in your soul that you want to write about, but you know it could be challenged or even banned?  Would you write it anyway?

I hope to hear from many of you on this topic.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

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