Some of our most beloved books have been challenged and banned over time, time and time again, here and now in this time, and in times past, likely in times future.

Here is a list of books that you will LOVE or already love which have been banned. They are arranged alphabetically by book title, and include author’s name and reason for challenge, if known.

I think that you will be surprised at some of the books you find on this list.

Others that you might not have read are always worth a read, or at least a scan to see if you would like it!

Check out the books that have been burned in protest also (another list). THOSE may ALSO surprise you!

 

1. 1984 by George Orwell (Procommunist and sexually explicit material)

2. Adam Bede by George Eliot ("vile outpourings of a lewd woman's mind")

3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (racist; degrading, insensitive, and oppressive; use of the word 'nigger')

4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (racist, dangerous; too full of racially charged language)

5. Aesop's Fables by Aesop (sacrilege)

6. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (argues for Deism and against Christianity and Atheism; blasphemous)

7. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (contains expletives, references to masturbation and sexual fantasies, and derogatory characterizations of a teachers and of religious ceremonies; Animals should not use human language, and that it was disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level)

8. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erica Marcia Remarque (blasphemous; demoralizes and insults the Wehrmacht)

9. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

10. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (vulgar language, sexual explicitness, and violent imagery that is gratuitously employed)

11. American Heritage Dictionary (objectionable words; has slang definitions for words such as bed, knocker, and balls)

12. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story by George Orwell (Anti-Stalin theme; religious reasons)

13. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

14. Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (too depressing; sexually offensive passages; a real downer; pornographic)

15. The Arabian Nights, or, The Thousand and One Nights – anonymous (lewd, filthy, obscene, indecent; contained obscene passages which posed a threat to the country's moral fabric)

16. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (built around just two themes: sex and anti-Christian behavior; profane, immoral, and offensive)

17. The Art of Love by Ovid (sly love manual)

18. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (7 passages that made reference to God or abortion and used such words as bastard, goddam, and son of a bitch)

19. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (contains sexual material and advocates an objectionable philosophy of life; poor quality literature and stresses suicide, illicit sex, violence and hopelessness)

21. Beloved by Toni Morrison (offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group)

22. The Bible (William Tyndale, who partially completed translating the Bible into English, was captured, strangled, and burned at the stake (1536) by opponents of the movement to translate the bible into the vernacular; not of the Muslim faith)

23. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (vilifies the family, sexuality, suicide, drugs; adult themes -- sexuality, drugs, and suicide; book centers around negative activity)

24. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (profanity, use of 'Oh, Lord', disrespectful of adults, an elaborate fantasy world which might lead to confusion, promotes witchcraft and violence; uses swear words and deals with sorcery; offensive language; references to witchcraft; sets bad examples and gives students negative views of life)

25. Buddhist Holy Writs

26. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (if there is the possibility that something might be controversial, why not eliminate it?; slanted)

27. Call of the Wild by Jack London (Burned in Nazi bonfires)

28. Candide by Voltaire (obscene)

29. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and Neville Coghill (lewd, filthy, obscene, indecent)

30. Carrie by Stephen King

31. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

32. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (teachers need to explain why this book is to be read; a filthy, filthy book; preferred nine times out of ten by whackos, killers, and disgruntled teenagers; excess vulgar language, sexual scenes, things concerning moral issues, excessive violence, and anything dealing with the occult; centered around negative activity; profanity, reference to suicide, vulgarity, disrespect, and anti-Christian sentiments)

33. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

34. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (espouses a poor philosophy of life)

35. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

36. Cinderella

37. Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast

38. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (banned during McCarthy era)

39. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (hardcore graphic sexual content)

40. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (objectionable language)

41. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (sexual and social explicitness; troubling ideas about race relations, man's relationship to God, African history, and human sexuality; smut)

42. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx (political reasons)

43. Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (excessive violence, negative portrayals of female characters, and anti-Semitic references)

44. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway

45. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

46. Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau (injurious to public morality)

47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

48. The Crucible by Arthur Miller (contains sick words from the mouths of demon-possessed people. It should be wiped out of the schools or the school board should use them to fuel the fires of hell; junk)

49. Cujo by Stephen King

50. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

51. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

52. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (anti-Bolshevik stance)

53. Don Quixote by Saavedra Miguel de Cervantes (for the sentence, "Works of charity negligently performed are of no worth.")

54. Dracula by Bram Stoker (the book contains unacceptable descriptions in the introduction, such as "Dracula is the symptom of a wish, largely sexual, that we wish we did not have")

55. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (ungodly and obscene)

56. Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

57. Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean Paul Sartre

58. Exodus by Leon Uris

59. Fannie Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland (Fannie Hill was a prostitute)

60. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Dystopic)

61. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

62. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

63. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (When the Pulitzer Prize Advisory Board recommended For Whom the Bell Tolls for the 1940 prize, Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler said, "I hope that you will reconsider before you ask the University to be associated with an award for a work of this nature." There was no Pulitzer Prize for fiction for 1940. The US Post Office in the same year declared the book non-mailable; Eleven Turkish book publishers went on trial before an Istanbul martial law tribunal on charges of publishing, possessing and selling books in violation of an order of the Istanbul martial law command. They faced possible sentences of between one month's and six month's imprisonment "for spreading propaganda unfavorable to the state" and the confiscation of their books)

64. Foundations of Leninism by Josef Stalin

65. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (indecent, objectionable, obscene)

66. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers (drinking, smoking, violence, use of 'Oh, God')

67. From Here To Eternity by James Jones

68. The Giver by Lois Lowry (lewd; twisted; unfit for analysis by students because it is violent, sexually explicit and portrays infanticide and euthanasia; "The book is negative. I read it. I don't see the academic value in it. Everything presented to the kids should be positive or historical, not negative"; "The lady writes well, but when it comes to the ideas in that book, they have no place in my kid's head.")

69. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (sexist)

70. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

71. Go Ask Alice anonymous (drug use)

72. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (uses the word "nigger")

73. Goosebumps: Say Cheese and Die! (and the whole series) by R.L. Stine (too frightening for children and inappropriate for school libraries; satanic symbolism, demonic possession, and violence)

74. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (Teachers at the Westlake Middle School in Erie, Pennsylvania, using felt-tipped pens, blacked out passages pertaining to masturbation and mating.)

75. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (vulgar words; uses the name of God and Jesus in a "vain and profane manner along with inappropriate sexual references")

76. The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher by M.C. Escher (pornographic, perverted, and morbid themes)

77. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

78. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson (profanity, graphic violence, contains the words 'hell' and 'damn'; "filled with profanity, blasphemy, and obscenities, and gutter language")

79. The Green Mile (series) by Stephen King

80. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (wicked and obscene)

81. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (sex, violence, obscene language)

82. The Hammer of Eden by Ken Follett

83. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (sexual encounters)

84. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (teaches children to spy)

85. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling (tells kids that lying, cheating, and stealing are cute and acceptable; a masterpiece of Satanic deception; witchcraft; deals with ghosts, cults, and witchcraft; stupid; portrays good witches and good magic; stories about magic and wizards could draw students into Satanism; homosexuality; profanity; anti-Christian; a filthy, filthy book; have a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect, and sheer evil; contain lying and smart-aleck retorts to adults)

SERIES INCLUDES: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

86. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

87. Hindu Holy Writs

88. The Holy Bible (on religious grounds; lewd, obscene, indecent, offensive, violent, and dangerous to women)

89. How I Became a Socialist by Helen Keller

90. Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

91. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

92. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (racism, profanity; vulgar language, sexual explicitness, or violent imagery that is gratuitously employed)

93. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

94. Indian in the Cupboard (by Lynne Reid Banks (hell and heck; contains subtle stereotypes)

95. Insomnia by Stephen King

96. Interpretation by Upton Sinclair

97. In the Heat of the Night by John Ball

98. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (showed a cartoon boy's penis; nudity for no purpose; could lay the foundation for future use of pornography; desensitizes children to nudity)

99. In the Rabbit's Garden by Leo Lionni (makes a mockery of Adam and Eve; shallow; manipulative; lacking in intelligence and responsibility)

100. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen

101. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

102. The Iron Heel by Jack London

103. The Jacket by Jack London

104. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

105. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (use of word 'ass' and talks about wine, tobacco, and snuff; not appropriate reading material for young children; contains crude language and encourages children to disobey their parents and other adults; contains a foul word and promotes drugs and whiskey)

106. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (sexually explicit)

107. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

108. The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (Christian anarchist content)

109. King Lear by William Shakespeare (sex, violence, and obscene language; banned from the English stage from 1788 to 1820, out of respect to King George III's alleged insanity)

110. Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (obscene)

111. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (explicit language)

112. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in Rome from 1864-1959; Voted out of a library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania because it mentioned a grisette)

113. Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (junk)

115. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines (clashes with Christian values)

116. A Light In the Attic by Shel Silverstein (features a caricature of a person whose nude behind has been stung by a bee; the poem "Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony" is morbid; imparts a "dreary" and "negative" message; encourages kids to break dishes so that they won't have to wash them; suggestive illustrations; glorified Satan, suicide, cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient; suggests drug use, the occult, suicide, death, violence, disrespect for truth, disrespect for legitimate authority, rebellion against parents; behavior abusive to women and children, suicide is the best way to manipulate parents; mockery of God; selfish and disrespectful behavior; very vile; contained subliminal messages)

117. Like Water For Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romance, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel (sexually explicit and inappropriate material)

118. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (graphic violence, mysticism, and gore)

119. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (promotes racial epithets and is fueling the fire of racism)

120. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (offensive to Indians)

121. The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

122. Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

123. Little Red Riding Hood by Trina Schart Hyman (banned because Red carries a bottle of wine in her basket for grandmama)

124. The Living Bible by William C. Bower

125. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (reflected moral disintegration and reviled humanity; pedophilia)

126. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (criminalizes the forest industry)

127. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (racist terminology)

128. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (Satanic) (burning includes all of Tolkien's works)

129. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

130. Lucky by Alice Sebold

131. Luna by Julie Ann Peters

132. Lysistrata by Aristophanes (lewd, filthy, obscene,indecent, anti-war)

133. Macbeth by William Shakespeare (sex, violence, obscene language)

134. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (indecent)

135. The Malay Dilemma by Mahathir bin Mohamed (criticism of May 13 incident and UMNO)

136. Mammonart by Upton Sinclair

137. The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon (political reasons)

138. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (profanity and the use of God's name in vain

139. Matilda by Roald Dahl

140. Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler (Nazi)

141. Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (not appropriate for younger schoolmates)

142. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

143. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (challenges values within the community)

144. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (lewd, filthy, obscene, indecent)

145. More Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell (would cause children to fear the dark, have nightmares, and give them an unrealistic view of death; too scary; violence and cannibalism; unacceptably violent for children; shows the dark side of religion through the occult, the devil, and Satanism)

146. Mother Goose: Old Nursery Rhymes illustrated by Arthur Rackham

147. My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara (uses the word "bitch" to refer to a female dog, as well as the word "damn.")