Monday, September 29, 2008

I'm with the banned

One of my new favorite blogs (curse you, Google Reader, and your tempting recommendations) is My Past In Books, in which a woman just a little bit younger than I am remembers all her favorite young adult novels. Since I worked in the children's room of a library when I was in high school and therefore tore through young adult books like the print might fall off the page when I was just a little too old for them, we share many book memories.
Her latest entry is about Banned Books Week. You can see the full list of 100 most challenged books of 1990-2000 books on her site or at the American Library Association site (where you can also find other challenged-book lists).
Here's what I've already read from the list on MPIB:
  • The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  • My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry
  • A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
  • Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
  • In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
  • The Witches by Roald Dahl
  • Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
  • Blubber by Judy Blume
  • Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
  • The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  • The Pigman by Paul Zindel
  • Deenie by Judy Blume
  • Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  • A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
  • James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  • American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  • Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  • Guess What? by Mem Fox
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  • Native Son by Richard Wright
  • Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  • Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
  • Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
  • How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Find out more here.
And tell me in the comments what frequently challenged books I haven't read that I should make a priority, and why.
What are you going to read?
What are you going to read to your kids?

4 comments:

Kate said...

Teddy's new favorite book is The Night Kitchen...must have been the naked little boy that upset the censors...

bzzzzgrrrl said...

Kate-
I'm with Teddy on this. And that is exactly what was upsetting the censors when we were children, oh, 30 years ago.
Some people never grow up. :)

And congratulations on having all your offspring whole again!

librarygrl1 said...

I feel compelled by my profession to come out of the lurkosphere and comment on this one! Have you really not read Annie On My Mind? You must. Also the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman and Harry Potter...but we've discussed that before!

bzzzzgrrrl said...

lg1-
I have never in my life heard of Annie on My Mind, but now that I have, I am sad that I never have before. That means, absolutely, that my middle school, high school, and public libraries did not have this book. There is literally no chance I would have missed it, while I was reading the already outdated Trying Hard to Hear You, way back when I thought I was straight-but-not-narrow.

Yes, Harry Potter's still on the list. I did read the first one, but didn't think that was good enough to claim to have read the series.