banned books week

This week is Banned Books Week where organizations like The American Library Association tries to put the spotlight on censorship and the ridiculousness that happens in our public & school libraries and classrooms across the United States.

This year I went through the lists of challenged and banned books to see how many of these I have read.  I learned a couple of things.

1. People are waaaaay too sensitive.
2. Censorship is alive and well in the good ol' US of A.
3. There are just too many books on that list!

Some books on the list just confused me.  Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, for one.  A girl who sues her parents because she doesn't want to be a donor for her cancer stricken older sister anymore.  And it broke my heart to see Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic on there too.  Books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should be required reading for teens, but instead they're being challenged or banned.  So sad.

Well, you all know how I love my lists so here's my list of books I've read that have been challenged or banned.  I got the list of books from ALA's website.  There's more, but I stopped at 95.  It was out of control.

1. Beauty's Release by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
2. Beauty's Punishment by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
3. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
6. Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares
7. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
8. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
9. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
11. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
12. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
13. Dracula by Bram Stoker
14. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
15. Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
16. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
17. Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk
18. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
19. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
20. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
21. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
22. The Immortal Realm by Frewin Jones
23. The Sorcerer King by Frewin Jones
24. Blood Memory by Greg Isles
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
27. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
28. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
29. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
30. Cradle & All by James Patterson
31. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
32. Bone by Jeff Smith
33. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
34. Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
35. Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
36. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
37. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
38. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
39. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
40. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
41. Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil by John Berendt
42. Looking for Alaska by John Green
43. A Time to Kill by John Grisham
44. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
45. Red Pony by John Steinbeck
46. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
47. Forever by Judy Blume
48. Blubber by Judy Blume
49. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
50. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
51. Betrayed by PC & Kristin Cast
52. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
53. The Giver by Lois Lowry
54. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
55. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
56. Sex by Madonna
57. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
58. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
59. Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
60. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
61. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
62. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
63. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
64. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
65. Story of O by Pauline Reage
66. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
67. James & the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
68. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
69. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
70. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
71. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
72. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
73. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
74. Cujo by Stephen King
75. Carrie by Stephen King
76. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
77. Christine by Stephen King
78. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
79. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
80. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
81. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
82. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
83. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
84. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
85. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
86. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
87. Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
88. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
89. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
90. Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
91. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
92. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
93. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
94. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
95. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

That's my list.  I guess the good thing about all these banned books is that it gives me a great tbr list for next year ;)