Tag Archives: Harper Lee

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: My Favorite Banned Books

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My (almost) Wordless Wednesday tribute to just five of my favorite frequently challenged or banned books, in honor of this week’s celebration of our Freedom to Read. I’ve chosen just one of the numerous recent challenges provided by the American Library Association.

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

  • Removed from required reading lists and library shelves in the Richmond County, GA. School District (1994) after a parent complained that passages from the book are “filthy and inappropriate.”

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • Challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC (1987) because of “language and sexual references in the book.”

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

  • Challenged at the Brentwood, TN Middle School (2006) because the book contains “profanity” and “contains adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, and incest.”  The complainants also contend that the book’s use of racial slurs promotes “racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy.”

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

  • Challenged as appropriate reading for Oakland, CA High School honors class (1984) due to the work’s “sexual and social explicitness” and its “troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history, and human sexuality.”

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

  • Banned from the George County, MS schools (2002) because of profanity. Challenged in the Normal, IL Community High Schools (2003) because the books contains “racial slurs, profanity, violence, and does not represent traditional values.”

All images of book covers are from Goodreads.

What are your favorite banned books?

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Preparing for Banned Books Week

Posted in Book Reviews, Reading by

First of all, credit goes to lifeofabookjunky.tumblr.com for the excellent image, which I found, unsurprisingly on Pinterest.

Here’s the thing. I can do this. I can read until I feel better. That is my right and my privilege. I can pick up any book, of any style, in any format and read to laugh, or to cry, or to escape, or to wonder. That means a lot to me this week as I grieve and it should mean a lot to everyone, every day.

Next week is Banned Books Week (http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/) and the internet is all aflutter with images, displays and lists of banned or censored books. I don’t use my blog to push politics or draw people into debate, but censorship (especially of books) is another matter. This issue is my particular soapbox, so up I climb.

I’ve never intentionally set out to read books that others have tried to censor, but a quick glance at the American Library Association’s list (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics) of most frequently banned books shows that my reading taste must just veer toward the controversial. I’ve read most of the top 20, including such shocking titles as Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Color Purple.

It is no exaggeration to say that my life would be radically altered had I not read the above mentioned books.

Of Mice and Men is the first work of fiction I truly devoured. As a freshman in Mrs. Kirtley’s English class, I pulled apart, outlined, questioned, considered and reassembled this amazing piece of American literature. Steinbeck taught me that fiction could be socially responsible, that fiction could take me deep inside a stranger’s soul and teach me about history. Steinbeck showed me the glory of good writing.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Who can possibly take exception to this book? Scout Finch taught me all about smart young female narrators. (How did that change my life? Well, since I was smart young girl, I could identify.) Seriously, I believe I learned more about courage and integrity from Scout and Atticus than I did from any person I had ever met in real life.

The Color Purple was my first foray into African-American literature, and certainly if I had never read Walker, I would have never read Toni Morrison. The Color Purple opened up a world I knew nothing about and triggered a desire in me to learn more about our own country’s complicated history.

I could go on (and on and on), but I’ll stop here. Instead, I’m going to take a closer look at that list and see what other “illicit” titles I might want to investigate. If the rest of the titles are anything like the top ten, crazy people out there are trying to squash the best books around.

I leave you with some other great images from Pinterest and ask you to consider a “Banned Book” for your next reading choice.

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