Banned Books Week

So, it's Banned Books Week. (Ok, it actually started Sept. 29 and continues to Oct. 6.) ALA has a bunch of lists of the most challenged or banned books; the following are the titles off the lists that I have read. (I missed a lot of the traditional YA lit, I think - around 6th or 7th grade I got pretty heavily involved in WWII adult non-fiction. So all those great Judy Blume titles? Yeah, I just somehow missed them.)

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - I think I just read this as part of the "classics" phase I went through - stuff like Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe.


• Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling - didn't actually start reading them until after the first movie; I had read a similar book that came out around the same time as the first one, and for a long time confused them.


• The Giver by Lois Lowry - read it for a summer reading program in 7th or 8th grade.


• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George - don't remember when I read it; sometime around 8th or 9th grade, I think.


• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - first read it in high school; I think 9th grade. Read it again for my master's comps.


• Beloved by Toni Morrison - read it for a class on Southern culture for my history M.A.


• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - 8th grade lit.


• The Pigman by Paul Zindel - 10th grade lit.


• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - 12th grade lit.


• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl - elementary school librarian read it to us. One of two things I specifically remember her reading to us. (The other I cannot seem to find anywhere, but was about a girl taught to fly by a goose.) (Update: the other book is The Fledgling by Jane Langton.)


• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - 11th grade lit. I think I had read it before then, though.


• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene - 8th grade lit.


• 1984 by George Orwell - I think I read this after reading Animal Farm in 10th grade lit.


• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - Western Civ class in my undergrad.


• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - read it for that class on Southern culture for my history M.A.


• The Call of the Wild by Jack London - may have been for 11th grade lit, or I just read it on my own around the same time.


• All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren - read it for the class on Southern culture, then again for my comps.