Think back to your first real, first serious book that you read in school. You know, the one where there may have been a curse word, or real inequality, or historic acts of cruelty. What about the first one where there was a real relationship, a first kiss or romantic moment, or even one where it wasn’t in a “perfect setting” and described the trials and tribulations the main characters had to overcome to survive. Now, close your eyes, and imagine that book and your life having never read it.
Enter disgruntled adults in favor of censorship. In opposition of taking away readers’ First Amendment rights, Banned Book Week was created in 1982, celebrating those titles and our freedom to choose what we read.
Since the written word became the published story, classics have been consumed by readers internationally, studied and appreciated a million times daily. “On July 21, 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled and released its own list of the century’s top 100 novels, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board,” http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/radcliffes-rival-100-best-novels-list/. Now, what if I were to tell you that 50% of the best novels of all times are also banned books? Below are those from Radcliffe’s 100 list.
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
57. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
66. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
Additionally, there is Animal Farm by George Orwell, which addresses both historical and political downfalls of the past, which shows readers how the Stalin regime dominated and what SHOULD have been done or seen, or what we are to look out for now in political turmoil. The Giver by Lois Lowry, describes a utopian society, but at what cost? The protagonist must choose right from wrong, all while coming of age, and what’s unrealistic about that? My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, is set during the American Revolution where a boy grows up during the war and has to choose his morals versus his family’s ideals; completely relevant to every generation.
Lois Duncan, Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Ernest Hemingway, Roald Dahl, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain, and even J.K. Rowling and Maurice Sendak. All some of world’s greatest and strongest minds, all questioned for writing about life in their own way.
In the last twenty years, according to the ALA, it was in the mid-’90s when the banned book bandwagon really gained momentum, challenging nearly 800 titles annually. However, most recently in 2010, there have been the least amount of challenges since 1990, only 348. The reason behind the majority of these challenges is sexual content, followed by language, violence, and unsuitability for an age group. Parents lead this frontier with 6,103 and schools were the top institution at 4,048. These statistics are logical yet intriguing.
In celebration for our Constitution, let us read all of the wonderful works out there, and this year, there’s a new spin- the Virtual Read Out. Pick your favorite banned book, find a meaningful passage to you, and hit record. YouTube has a BBW Channel for you to share the excerpts you chose to read aloud. For full details, go to www.bannedbooksweek.org and celebrate your F-READ-OM!
