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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.

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

8 Comments

Posted in Mostly About Reading

Tagged banned books, banned classics, challenged books, do you read banned books?, Holy Bible; banned picture books; banned novels; do you agree with banning books?, reading

27 most famous banned, censored, or challenged books (Banned Books Week)

Posted on October 3, 2015 | 8 comments

Today is the last day of Banned Books Week. I didn’t want to let it slip by without mention, so here is a list of some of the most famous books that have been banned, censored, or challenged at some time.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – by Mark Twain
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl – by Anne Frank
The Arabian Nights – by Mahsin Mahdi
Awakening – by Kate Chopin
Bell Jar – by Sylvia Plath
Brave New World – by Aldous Huxley
Call of the Wild – by Jack London
The Color Purple – by Alice Walker
Candide – by Voltaire
Catcher in the Rye – by J.D. Salinger
Fahrenheit 451 – by Ray Bradbury
Grapes of Wrath – by John Steinbeck
Gulliver’s Travels – by Jonathan Swift
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – by Maya Angelou
James and the Giant Peach – by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – by D.H. Lawrence
A Light in the Attic – by Shel Silverstein
Lord of the Flies – by William Golding
Madame Bovary – by Gustave Flaubert
Moll Flanders – by Daniel Defoe
Of Mice and Men – by John Steinbeck
The Scarlet Letter – by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Song of Solomon – by Toni Morrison
To Kill a Mockingbird – by Harper Lee
Ulysses – by James Joyce
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – by Harriet Beecher Stowe
A Wrinkle in Time – by Madeleine D’Engle

Now, confession time:

I have not read 21 of the books on this list, but 6 of those 21 are in my TBR stash. Of the ones “to be read” I have read part of 2 books (and will complete them). This means so far I have read completely only 6 of the 27 listed here.

It’s hard to accept why some books are banned, or censored, or challenged. It’s hard to avoid life, the natural way of some things, and shared expression.

Here are three of the above books on which I’ll comment.

I loved Madeleine D’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, regardless of the “objectionable” things she included in her fantasy novel.
I loved the movie To Kill a Mockingbird and equally enjoyed the book, even though there are racial issues. But that was the way of the time, the same as in Gone With the Wind (not included in this list but also challenged); it doesn’t mean I feel that way. I will not read Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, though, as it will undoubtedly spoil To Kill the Mockingbird for me in revealing more racial issues than I care to read for entertainment.
It is fully understandable why there was an outcry (and still is) about Catcher in the Rye, due to the constant use of profanity of Salinger’s main character. Some people are not bothered by that.