Banned Books

Click on the banner for more information on how you can participate :)

Donna from LitBites has come up with this AMAZING idea! For the month of September (through October 3) bloggers are participating in creating awareness for banned books.

Here are a few banned/challenged books I LOVE! Click on them for my review and/or more about each.




Why were they banned?

Anaya, Rudolfo A. Bless Me, Ultima. TQS
Pubns. Banned from the Orestimba High School’s
English classes in Newman, Calif. (2008) by the
superintendent after complaints that the book is
profane and anti-Catholic. Teachers claimed that the
superintendent circumvented the district’s policies
on book challenges and set a dangerous precedent.
The book is about a boy maturing, asking questions
about evil, justice, and the nature of God. Source:
Jan. 2009, p. 7; Mar. 2009, pp. 39-40.

Chbosky, Stephen. The Perks of Being a
Wallflower. Pocket Bks. Removed from Portage, Ind.
High School classrooms (2008) for topics such as
homosexuality, drug use, and sexual behavior. The
novel chronicles the freshman year of high school
of a young man struggling with awkwardness
and the changing world around him. Source: Jan.
2009, pp. 8-9.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Lippincott/
Harper; Popular Library. Retained in the English
curriculum by the Cherry Hill, N.J. Board of
Education (2007). A resident had objected to
the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated
by members of a racist white community in an
Alabama town during the Depression. The resident
feared the book would upset black children reading
it. Source: Mar. 2008, p. 80; May 2008, pp. 117-18.

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. Little. Moved to
the faculty section of the John W. McDevitt Middle
School library in Waltham, Mass. (2008) because
its content was too frightening for middle school
students. Source: May 2008, p. 97.


Flowers for Algernon is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999 at number 43.[24] The reasons for the challenges vary, but usually center around those parts of the novel where Charlie struggles to understand and express his sexual desires.[25] Many of the challenges have proved unsuccessful, but the book has occasionally been banned from school libraries including some in Pennsylvania and Texas.[25][26]

In January 1970, the school board of Cranbrook, British Columbia, as well as Calgary, Alberta, banned the Flowers for Algernon novel from the local grade-nine curriculum and the school library, after a parent complained that it was "filthy and immoral". The president of the BC Teachers' Federation criticized the action. Flowers for Algernon was part of the BC Department of Education list of approved books for grade nine and was recommended by the BC Secondary Association of Teachers of English. A month later, the board reconsidered and returned the book to the library; they did not, however, lift its ban from the curriculum.[27][28]


You guys should definitely check out those books if you haven't already. :) Only because a book is banned/challenged does not mean it's not amazing and worth reading. :D