A Utah school district recently restricted access to a children’s book about a happy family with lesbian moms. Such limits on books are nothing new. Each year, books are banned, removed from schools, or challenged. In Texas public schools alone, 87 books were challenged and 20 were banned during the 2009-2010 school year.
In the 2010-2011 school year, books that were banned or challenged in schools include The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Hunger Games, as well as older books such as The Diary of Anne Frank and The Catcher in the Rye. Each year is different, but there are some young adult classics that have always been controversial. Take a look at this gallery of the 10 most commonly banned or challenged books. Are some of your favorites on the list?
(Photo: Phil Ashley/Getty Images)
The Great Gatsby
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925, and was republished in 1945 and 1953. It was challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC in 1987 because of “language and sexual references...”
(Photo: Charles Scribner's Sons)
The Catcher in the Rye
Published in 1951, J.D Salinger’s popular novel has been banned from school reading lists since 1960 for language and sexual references. The most famous push for the book’s ban came after a copy was found in possession of the man who killed John Lennon in 1980.
(Photo: Little, Brown & Company)
The Grapes of Wrath
Quickly after TheGrapes of Wrath was published in 1939, it was banned in Kern County, CA, the town where the novel was set. Since then, it has been banned in Ireland and other areas of the United States for profanity and for the use of the words “God” and “Jesus.”
(Photo: Penguin Books)
To Kill A Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s tale of a young girl growing up in Alabama during the Great Depression has been challenged and banned in schools since the 1970s. Reasons range from racism and racial slurs, to adult situations of a sexual nature.
(Photo: HarperCollins)
The Color Purple
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple was banned from a Philadelphia school district in 1992 because of the “explicit” nature of some of the novel’s content. In a Virginia high school library, the book was placed in a special section where students had to be over 18 years of age in order to gain access to it. In 2008, the book was challenged in Burke County schools in Morgantown, North Carolina by parents concerned about the homosexuality, rape, and incest portrayed in it.
(Photo: Harcourt)
Ulysses
Until the 1930s in the U.K., and during the 1930s and 1940s in Australia, James Joyce’s famed novel was banned for being “obscene.” In the United States, the book was banned on the grounds that it might cause American readers to harbor “impure and lustful thoughts.” The ban was lifted in 1933 in the court case United States v. One Book Called Ulysses.
(Photo: Penguin Books)
Lolita
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was labeled obscene and banned in France, England, Argentina and New Zealand during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
(Photo: Penguin Books)
Of Mice and Men
Profane, offensive, racist, and sexist language, as well as doubts about Steinbeck’s patriotism, are all reasons why this novel has been banned and removed from various classrooms and school reading lists since it was published in 1937.
(Photo: Penguin Books)
Catch-22
Joseph Heller’s novel was banned in several states in the U.S—first in Strongsville, Ohio, in 1972, then in Dallas, Texas, and Snoqualmie, Washington, in 1974 and 1979, respectively. The reasons behind the bans were language and derogatory terms against women.
(Photo: Simon & Schuster)
Brave New World
References to promiscuity caused a ban on this science fiction classic in 1930s Ireland. Since then, the book has been removed from classrooms and challenged by parents in states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and California.
