home

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!
September 26-October 2

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Effective: December 15, 1791

Noam Chomsky: “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”


BANNED BOOKS WEEK: CELEBRATING THE FREEDOM TO READ
September 26 - October 3, 1998

  1. Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.
  2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  5. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  6. .Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  7. Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
  8. .More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
  9. .The Witches by Roald Dahl
  10. .Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
  11. .Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
  12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
  13. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
  14. Blubber by Judy Blume
  15. Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
  16. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
  17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
  18. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
  19. Christine by Stephen King
  20. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  21. .Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
  22. The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Gibbelsman
  23. .Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
  24. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
  25. Night Chills by Dean Koontz
  26. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  27. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  28. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  29. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  30. .James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  31. .The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
  32. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
  33. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  34. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  35. Cujo by Stephen King
  36. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  37. The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
  38. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
  39. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
  40. Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
  41. I Have to Go by Robert Munsch
  42. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
  43. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
  45. My House by Nikki Giovanni
  46. Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
  47. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  48. Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
  49. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  50. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz


Modern Library's 66* Best Books of the the Twentieth Century (*These 34 books on the list of 100 have been banned or challenged at some time in their printed life.)

#1 Ulysses by James Joyce
#2 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
#4 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#5 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#7 Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
#9 Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
#10 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#13 1984 by George Orwell
#14 I, Claudius by Robert Graves
#16 An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#18 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#19 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#20 Native Son by Richard Wright
#22 Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
#33 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#35 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#36 All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
#39 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#41 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#42 Deliverance by James Dickey
#44 Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
#45 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#48 The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
#49 Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
#50 Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
#51 The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
#52 Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
#62 From Here to Eternity by James Jones
#64 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
#65 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#74 A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#88 The Call of the Wild by Jack London
#96 Sophie's Choice by William Styron

These books have not necessarily been banned but could be just as easily as any of the aforementioned. They happen to be among my favorite books. Try one!

©1998, 1999, 2000 Suki Ewers