Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Celebrate Banned Books Week


It's Banned Books Week!

Sheila over at Book Journey is hosting a celebration of banned books, with lots of links to other blogs and giveaways, so stop by!  And join in the fun yourself by reading banned books and/or posting about them.

I just finished Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and am now reading The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, both commonly banned books.  Look for reviews of those later this week, here and at Book By Book.

Check out this list of the 100 most frequently banned books (from 1990 - 1999), compiled by the American Library Association (ALA) and this list of most frequently banned and challenged classics.  You will be surprised by some of the titles on these lists.  How many of these naughty books have YOU read??

From these two lists, I have read the following kids/teen/YA books (see Book By Book's Banned Book post for the list of grown-up books read).  I linked to my reviews where they are available:
  • Forever by Judy Blume (a popular one when I was a teen!)
  • The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (read aloud to our kids)
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry (my son read it for middle school, so I read it as well)
  • In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (listened to on audio with our kids)
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (how dare they ban my favorite book?)
  • Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
  • Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George (read for school in 7th grade)
  •  Deenie by Judy Blume (another great one by Blume)
  • Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  • James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (read aloud to my class by an elementary school teacher)
  • Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (what girl could possibly go through adolescence without this book??)
  • Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford (seriously??)
  • Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Wow, I have been a bad, bad girl!!

I was pleased to see that many of the banned books I have read (on this list and the one at Book By Book) were assigned for school (mine or my kids'), so kudos to our schools for giving us a broad and unrestricted education!

Check out the lists to see how many banned books you have read...and select one you missed and head to your library!

6 comments:

Sheila (Bookjourney) said...

Isn't it great Sue to look at those lists and see how "bad" we are? LOL Thanks you so much for posting about banned books!

The Relentless Reader said...

Great list, apparently I'm a naughty girl too! ;) I haven't thought of Deenie in forever..what a great book!

Felicity Grace Terry said...

I read the Chocolate War and its sequel some time ago and didn't realise it was banned. Yeah, there's another book I can add to the list of books I'm obviously not supposed to be reading.

Isa said...

I really want to read Brave New World so I'm looking forward to your review. :)

Book Dragon said...

another great book that I'm sure you read to your kids....Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

Seems the author's name was the red flag this time. The book was pulled without ever checking it. Not sure of the rest of the story.

Nikki - Notes of Life said...

It seems that Judy Blume has quite a few books on the banned books list! I loved reading her books when I was younger... I must dig them about again one day :) And whoever would have thought a Roald Dahl book would have been banned?!