If You're Feeling Sinister . . .

Today is a tribute to banned books. This is not the first time, I've written about this, but it won't stop me from posting again. You may or may not know that this is banned books week, where librarians come together to celebrate "the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. (Note: I'm going to poke fun at some things here, but please be advised that I'm not saying parents shouldn't be allowed to object to the things their children are assigned to read, nor that schools, etc. shouldn't listen to those objections you have for your own child. But what's with us trying to make it so that no one can read Huckleberry Finn just because someone can't put it in context and realize how revolutionary it was in its time? And why should my child be denied Harry Potter because you didn't read it and therefore don't know it isn't actually going to teach anyone to be a witch? So yeah. Let's focus on the freedom thing here - we should all get a choice.) So, in celebration, here are a few of my favorite insidious reads:

• Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. You've got to love the irony of banning a book about book censorship. Especially because it was banned for all of those swears.
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book that many consider to be the great American novel, it was banned from and 8th grade reading list for the use of the word "nigger," and in the 1950s because the NAACP found it racist. To that I say, "All right then, I go to hell!"
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. If you don't know why this was banned, I suggest you go here.
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. You guessed it - vulgar language. I guess I can't say that much, since as an impressionable student reader I had a hard time with the language as well, but it has since become a book that I look back on fondly as one that created a powerful reading experience. (It's okay if you didn't like it though. I understand.)
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Oh, that wacky China, banning things because of talking animals. Don't they know this book is all about drugs?
• The Diary of Anne Frank. This was banned in Lebanon for portraying Jews favorably. Yeah, Anne Frank. Why don't you demonize yourself and give the Nazis a little more credit, huh?
• "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Apparently this was banned in South Africa during apartheid, or at least so Wikipedia tells me (with a citation).
• 1984 by George Orwell. Guess who banned this one? Yup. Stalin. I can't imagine why, since Big Brother was described as looking pretty much exactly like Stalin. Hahaha.
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Okay, it's still on my shelf unread, but I love me some Salman Rushdie and plan to read it soon. Either way, I love the whole exile aspect of this. Who says literature is useless? You can offend your whole country and be exiled for blasphemy! And then you can marry that girl from Top Chef.
• Go Ask Alice. This anonymously published book about the horrors of drug use is completely terrifying and excellent. It's rough, so its banning doesn't surprise me, but that's probably why it was so powerful to thousands of teenagers when it was published.
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The first feminist book I ever read.
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. I don't know why this was banned but my mom read it to me when I was little and we loved it.
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. In case you didn't think we banned books anymore (which would be silly - Harry Potter got banned!) this is one of my favorites, and it's recent.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Since this book is in my top 5 books of all time, I guess you know how I feel about it being banned.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This is a favorite story, even if the book didn't actually get banned. How perfect that a book entirely about standing against racism was challenged for being racist. I love it.

• An eighth grader from Stanford Middle School in California spearheaded a campaign to remove Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from his classroom. He was uncomfortable with the use of racial slurs. In protest, he wore a shirt to school emblazoned with some of the racial epithets from the book. He was asked to cover his shirt. The book was taken under review of the school district and was kept in the classroom.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Parents didn't think it was positive enough.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Man, I love this book.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. A parent in Florida objected to the southern racism. I'll admit that without that, you don't have much of a book.