A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle

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A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet)
By Madeleine L'Engle

What would happen if you took Lovecraft and made him believe in the power of love? That's the heart and soul of this book, traveling across the stars on the wings of math, facing horrible abominations and alien figures, and finding out the universe ain't so bad after all. While my first reaction as an adult is to reject the ending as too neat, too concise and optimistic in how easily little Meg defeats the monster and saves her family, I see how a young child would love it. Thinking back, I do not remember much about the story when I first read it in sixth grade, but the love of math and the ideas of science that it implanted in me has always stuck. A quick, fun read, this book holds up as a fun entry for children but lacks a strong narrative for adults. Kinda gotta love a big, furry, tentacled, blind creature named Aunt Beast, though.

Banned

#22 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 from ALA, #90 for 2000-2009

Jerry Falwell Ministries claims it undermines faith and religious beliefs and contains offensive language

1985 - Florida - Challenged but retained at Polk City Elementary where a parent believed it promoted witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons

1990 - Alabama - Challenged at the Anniston schools for sending mix signals about good and evil, as well as a parent complaining the book listed Jesus Christ with other artists and thinkers.

1996 - North Carolina - Challenged but retained by the Catawba Count School Board in Newton after a parent requested for undermining religious beliefs.

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging the Freedom to Read. 2014.

USAToday

Banned Books Project

Banned Books Awareness

SUVUDO

ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom

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"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard

in

When evil comes to pray on poor Dudley the Stork, he calls upon his animal friends to help him. Too bad they are all crazy idiots. The quick and funny ghost story is written for just beginning to read children as a first chapter book containing surprises with a bit of complexity in the language. Honestly, the twist at the end is not one I will spoil as written, but it is sure to make you say Hay! I hate puns. Stand out character is the medium Madam Creepy, the mystic alligator. The drawings are fun and in keeping with the artist and writer's other collaborations. A fun time.

Banned

  • #93 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009
  • occult and various supernatural issues, description of families in a derogatory manner and encourages disrespectful language and disobedience to parents
  • 1986 - challenged at Wasilla Library, Alaska, retained

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Carrie by Stephen King

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Carrie
By Stephen King

Meet Carrie. She's a sad and lonely girl who gets picked on until she kills everyone. With super powers. Like you do. The novel is a blend of third person narration and secondary fictional material outlining some history, background, and context for the events of the novel where Carrie gets picked on and kills everyone. This blend can be jarring, but also aids in the suspense. The reader knows where all this bullying, premarital sex, cursing, and general shitty teen behavior will lead as soon as we learn the crazy girl can move things with her mind, but the "nonfiction" additions help stretch out the quick pacing. If you are a Stephen King purist, you already know this book by heart. Everyone else deserves to check it out from the library.

Banned

1975 - Nevada - Challenged at Clark High School Library in Las Vegas, considered “trash.”

1978 - Vermont - Delegated to a special closed shelf at Union High School library in Vergennes citing it could “harm” students, especially “younger girls.”

1987 - Iowa - Book removed from West Lyon Community School library in Larchwood, Iowa cited as “it does not meet the standards of the community.”

1991 - New York - Banned from all of the district libraries of Altmar-Parish-Williamstown, New York.

1994

Pennsylvania - Challenged by a parent in the Junior High East Library located in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. Complaining of “the book’s language,” sexual descriptions and a “satanic killing” sequence.

North Dakota - A minister from Bismarck, North Dakota wanted this book and eight other King novels (Cujo, Christine, The Dead Zone, The Drawing of the Three, The Eyes of the Dragon, Pet Semetary, The Shining, and Thinner), to be banned from the school libraries. He challenged the books because of “age appropriateness.”

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

in

As a treasure hunt type of novel, when the action revs up, you find yourself turning the pages faster and faster to see what happens next, then going back to see what pop culture references you missed. And that is what makes half this book fun, the references. If you were a child of the 80s that grew up on movies, TV and video games as your primary child rearing devices, this book should hit every chord in your brain bringing back memories on nearly every page. If you don’t know a lot about that kind of stuff... well, the story is enjoyable, just get ready to skip a lot of sections describing in detail various video game scenarios and tricks. A solid book that leans heavily on nostalgia, but still makes you wonder what is going to happen next.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

in ,
To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee

A novel told from the point of a young girl that deals with racism, sexism, classicism, and violence in the deep south. Join our narrator as he gets into the issues of his homeland and also shares stories about rolling in tires and old pianos in gymnasiums.

Banned

deals with racial injustice, class systems, gender roles, loss of innocence, language, violence, rape, incest and authority

1966 - Virginia - Hanover for immoral use of rape as a plot device

1968 - #2 National Education Association list receiving the most complaints from private organizations

1977 - Minnesota - Eden Valley School Committee for being too laden with profanity, temporary ban

1980 - New York - Vernon-Verona-Sherill School District where "Reverend Carl Hadley threatened to establish a private Christian school because public school libraries contained such "filthy, trashy sex novels" as A Separate Peace and To Kill a Mockingbird"

1981 - Indiana - Warren where "three black parents resigned from the township Human Relations Advisory Council when the Warren County school administration refused to remove the book from Warren junior high school classes. They contended that the book "does psychological damage to the positive integration process and represents institutionalized racism""

1984 - Illinois - Waukegan School District over racial slurs.

1985

Missouri - Kansas City and Park Hill Junior High School for profanity and racial slurs

Arizona - Casa Grande School District "by black parents and the NAACP who charged the book was unfit for junior high use."

1990s - New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada for racial language, “The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word ‘nigger’ is used 48 times [in] the novel… We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation… To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction.”

1995

California - Santa Cruz Schools for racial themes

Louisiana - Caddo Parish's Southwood High School Library for language and objectionable content

1996

Mississippi - Moss Point School District over racial epithet.

Texas - Lindale advanced placement English reading list for “conflicted with the values of the community.”

2000-2009 - #21 on ALA's most frequently challenged books

2001

Georgia - Glynn County School Board for profanity

Oklahoma - removed from Muskogee High School for racial slurs after years of complaints from black students and parents, but returned

2004

Illinois - Normal Community High School as "being degrading to African Americans."

North Carolina - Durham for racial slurs.

2006 - Tennessee - Brentwood Middle School for profanity, sex, rape and incest as well as racial slurs promoting "racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy"

2007 - New Jersey - Cherry Hill Board of Education for objections "to the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated by members of a racist white community in an Alabama town during the Depression and feared the book would upset black children reading it."

2009 - Canada, Ontario - St. Edmund Campion Secondary School in Brampton due to language and racial slurs

2016 - Virginia - The superintendent of Accomack County Public Schools confirmed the district had removed Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” after a parent voiced her concerns during a Nov. 15 school board meeting, reported WAVY-TV.

2017 - Mississippi - Removed from the 8th grade course work in Biloxi schools due to "some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable

2018 - Minnesota - Duluth Public Schools removed the book from the curriculum for use of the "n" word.

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

Caron, Christina. "‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Removed From School in Mississippi." New York Times. Retrieved Oct 16, 2017 from

Philips, Kristine. "A school district drops ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ over use of the n-word." Washington Post. Retrieved on 2018 February 9 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/07/a-school-district-drops-to-kill-a-mockingbird-and-huckleberry-finn-over-use-of-the-n-word/?utm_term=.f2df4a0b9d2d

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"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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It's So Amazing by Robie H Harris and Michael Emberley

in

A book about eggs, sperm, birth, babies, families, spawning, tearing free the burden of your own existential horror, and making yourself irrelevant through reproduction.

Banned

2002 - Texas - Residents of Montgomery County, Texas, wanted the books banned from the local public library system. Montgomery County Library Director, Jerilynn Adams Williams, fought the measure for three months before both books were finally allowed to return to the shelves. Williams won the 2003 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her efforts.

2003 - Florida - Relocated from the young adult to the adult section of the Fort Bend County Libraries in Richmond. The same title was recently moved to the restricted section of the Fort Bend School District's media centers after a resident sent an e-mail message to the superintendent expressing concern about the book's content. The Spirit of Freedom Republican Women's Club petitioned the superintendent to have it, along with It's Perfectly Normal: A Book about Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health, moved because they contain "frontal nudity and discussion of homosexual relationship and abortion."

2005

Arkansas - Restricted, but later returned to general circulation shelves with some limits on student access, based on a review committee's recommendations, at the Holt Middle School parent library in Fayetteville, Ark. (2005) despite a parent's complaint that it was sexually explicit.

Wisconsin - Relocated to the reference section of the Northern Hills Elementary school media center in Onalaska, Wis. (2005) because a parent complained about its frank yet kid-friendly discussion of reproduction topics, including sexual intercourse, masturbation, abortion, and homosexuality."

#37 ALA's Most Banned Books 2000-2009

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

in ,
Bless Me, Ultima
By Rudolfo Anaya

A boy and his magical grandmother battle evil while going to church and finding fish gods. Also, the farmer and the cowman can be friends.

Banned

1992 - California - Challenged at the Porterville high schools for "many profane and obscene references, vulgar Spanish words, and glorifies witchcraft and death"

1996 - Texas - Retained on the Round Rock Independent High School Reading list after a challenge that the book was too violent

1999 - California - Removed from the Laton Unified School District for violence and profanity that might harm students after being chosen because the student population is 80 percent Hispanic.

2000 - New York - Challenged at the John Jay High School in Wappingers Falls because the book is "full of sex and cursing"

2005 - Norwood, Colorado, Norwood High School - after the book was removed from reading lists and to be destroyed, the parents asked to burn it - The book was removed by the superintendent after two parents complained about profanity. He gave all copies of the books to the parents who "tossed them in the trash." The superintendent later apologized after students organized an all day sit-in at the school gym. 

2008 - Newman, CA, Orestimba High School - removed by the superintendent for being "profane and anti-Catholic." Teachers claimed the superintendent circumvented policy on book challenges and set a dangerous precedent. 

2013 - Driggs, ID, Teton Valley School District - Removed and reinstated after being banned by the superintendent for "profanity and alleged inappropriateness"

Part of The Big Read

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

in
Where the Wild Things Are
By Maurice Sendak

A child gets sent to bed without dinner and in the throes of hunger pains experiences vivid hallucinations of wild things and voyages.

Banned

Banned for being "too dark" and for supernatural themes.

Most accounts are vague, but American Southern libraries and schools seem to be the initial place of the book being challenged.

Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim criticized the book in the March 1969 edition of Ladies Home Journal, although in the same column admitted to not being familiar with the book.

Sources

Shafer, Jack. “Maurice Sendak’s Thin Skin.” The Slate. Original publication October 15, 2009. Retrieved September 25, 2018 from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/10/where-the-wild-things-are-author-maurice-sendak-can-t-stoppositioning-himself-as-bruno-bettelheim-s-victim.html

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

in

A small man is sucked out of his clothes and into a hellish wasteland where he must defeat a cult of baking Hitlers before they give rise to the abomination known as M'ilk.

Banned

1972 - Sendak's editor, Ursula Nordstrom wrote to a librarian who burned the book and commented on librarians and teacher painting over the boy's nudity

1977

Illinois - Banned in Norridge at Pennoyer Elementary after a school board member complained about "nudity without a purpose," but was reinstated in 2012. 

Missouri - Damaged in Springfield by drawing shorts on the nude boy

1985 - Wisconsin - Challenged at the Cunningham Elementary School libraries for nudity

1988 - Illinois - Challenged at the Robeson Elementary School in Champaign because of "gratuitous" nudity

1989 - New Jersey - Challenged at the Camden Elementary school libraries for nudity

1992 - Minnesota - Challenged at the Elk River schools because reading the book "could lay the foundation for future use of pornography"

1994 - Texas - Challenged at the El Paso Public Library because "the little boy pictured did not have any clothes on and it pictured his private area"

2006 - North Carolina - Challenged in the Wake County schools. Parents are getting help from Called2Action, a Christian group that says its mission is to "promote and defend our shared family values."

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan 30

in
Killing Mr. Griffin
By Lois Duncan

A bunch of kids decide it would be funny to kidnap their teacher but everything goes horribly wrong, mostly because one of them is Bonkers McCrazynuts.

Banned

Contains violence, murder, drinking, drugs, lying to authority, peer pressure and smoking

#25 on Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009

1988 - California - Challenged at the Sinnott Elementary School in Milpitas for containing "needlessly foul" language and had no "redeeming qualities"

1992 - California - Removed from Bonsall Middle School eighth-grade reading list because of violence and profanity

1995 - Pennsylvania - Challenged ain the Shenandoah Valley Junior-Senior High School curriculum for violence, language, and unflattering references to God

2000 - Pennsylvania - Challenged in a Bristol Borough middle school for violence and language

2001 - South Carolina - Greenville school board voted to keep the book

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources:

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

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American Library Association

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