My Favorite Banned Books

I’m working on reading the 100 most banned books in the last 7 years. I feel it’s my duty to read them all. Toni Morrison has several on the list, so I’m going to have to try one of hers next.

In the ironic category, I love the fact that Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry is on the list. It was challenged at a middle school where I used to work. A parent thought it was racist. A book written by a black woman about a girl in Mississippi learning to deal with racism was racist? Luckily my principal (a black man, incidentally) defended the book and the book stayed in the classroom.

And Captain Underpants???? Oh, come on!!!

Happy reading!

My completed list so far.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling

Forever by Judy Blume

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Ordinary People by Judith Guest

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

Blood and Chocolate Annette Curtis Klause

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

A Time to Kill by John Grisham

Check out the Top 100 most frequently challenged books from 2000-2007 here.

National Book Festival

At the National Book Festival on Sept. 27, there is a Pavilion of States. In this pavilion, each state library sets up a display to represent literacy in that state.

To encourage the 120,000 visitors to check out each state's site, there is a kids' map activity where the object is to visit every state display and get a stamp.
Therefore, each state chooses one children's or YA book to represent the state.



Delaware's book is Fakie.

So while I'm an hour or so away at the Baltimore Book Festival, my book will be in DC on display--representing the First State.
Please wave at it if you go.