Ten Best Banned Books for BB Week!

This week is banned books week. While I do not (yet) have a book that has had the privilege of being banned, I have read many, many banned books and have enjoyed most of them.

Here is a list of the most commonly banned/challenged books in the U.S.  How many have you read?

Italics = I’ve read it.
Bold = My personal top 10!

Nineteen Eighty-four (1984) – George Orwell
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby – Dav Pilkey A
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
Alice series – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
Always Running – Luis J. Rodriguez
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
The Anarchist Cookbook – William Powell
Anastasia Again! – Lois Lowry
And Tango Makes Three – Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging – Louise Rennison
Annie on My Mind – Nancy Garden
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret – Judy Blume
Arming America – Michael Bellasiles
Arizona Kid – Ron Koertge
As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
Asking About Sex and Growing Up – Joanna Cole
Athletic Shorts – Chris Crutcher
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Bless Me, Ultima – Rudolfo A. Anaya
Blood and Chocolate – Annette Curtis Klause
Blubber – Judy Blume
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
The Boy Who Lost His Face – Louis Sachar
Boys and Sex – Wardell Pomeroy
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
Bumps in the Night – Harry Allard
The Call of the Wild – Jack London
Captain Underpants – Dav Pilkey
Carrie – Stephen King
The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Chocolate War – Robert Cormier
Christine – Stephen King
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Crazy Lady! – Jane Conly
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat – Alvin Schwartz
Cujo – Stephen King
Curses, Hexes and Spells – Daniel Cohen
Cut – Patricia McCormick
Daddy’s Roommate – Michael Willhoite
A Day No Pigs Would Die – Robert Newton Peck
The Dead Zone – Stephen King
Deenie – Judy Blume
Detour for Emmy – Marilyn Reynolds
The Drowning of Stephan Jones – Bette Greene
Earth’s Children (series) – Jean M. Auel
The Exorcist – William Peter Blatty
The Face on the Milk Carton – Caroline B. Cooney
Fade – Robert Cormier
Fallen Angels – Walter Dean Myers
Family Secrets – Norma Klein
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Final Exit – Derek Humphry
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Forever – Judy Blume
Girls and Sex – Wardell Pomeroy
The Giver – Lois Lowry
Go Ask Alice – Anonymous
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
The Goats – Brock Cole
Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Goosebumps (series) – R. L. Stine
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gilly Hopkins – Katherine Paterson
Guess What? – Mem Fox
Halloween ABC – Eve Merriam
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Harry Potter (series) – J. K. Rowling
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Heather Has Two Mommies – Lesléa Newman
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
How to Eat Fried Worms – Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
In the Night Kitchen – Maurice Sendak
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
It’s Perfectly Normal – Robie Harris
It’s So Amazing – Robie Harris
Jack – A. M. Homes
James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
Jay’s Journal – Anonymous
Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George
Jump Ship to Freedom – James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Jumper – Steven Gould
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Kaffir Boy – Mark Mathabane
Killing Mr. Griffin – Lois Duncan
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence
A Light in the Attic – Shel Silverstein
Little Black Sambo – Helen Bannerman
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Mommy Laid An Egg – Babette Cole
My Brother Sam Is Dead – James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
Naked Lunch – William S. Burroughs
Native Son – Richard Wright
The New Joy of Gay Sex – Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
On My Honor – Marion Dane Bauer
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Ordinary People – Judith Guest
The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
The Pigman – Paul Zindel
Private Parts – Howard Stern
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
The Rabbit’s Wedding – Garth Williams
Rainbow Boys – Alex Sanchez
Running Loose – Chris Crutcher
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
Scary Stories (series) – Alvin Schwartz
A Separate Peace – John Knowles
Sex – Madonna
Sex Education – Jenny Davis
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
The Sledding Hill – Chris Crutcher
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy – A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Song of Solomon (novel) – Toni Morrison
Sons and Lovers – D. H. Lawrence
The Stupids (series) – Harry Allard
Summer of My German Soldier – Bette Greene
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
That Was Then, This Is Now – S. E. Hinton A
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Tiger Eyes – Judy Blume
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
Ulysses – James Joyce
View from the Cherry Tree – Willo Davis Roberts
We All Fall Down – Robert Cormier
Whale Talk – Chris Crutcher
What My Mother Doesn’t Know – Sonya Sones
What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons – Lynda Madaras
What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents &Daughters – Lynda Madaras
Where Did I Come From? – Peter Mayle
The Wish Giver – Bill Brittain
The Witches – Roald Dahl
Women in Love – D. H. Lawrence
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies – Nancy Friday
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

And, even though it’s not on this list, I recommend The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson, which was challenged in 2007.