Read a banned book?

[sophia jane]

What's your favorite banned/challenged book?

Challenged book list (1990's)



Tells you what kind of mom I am- if you see the list for 2004, one of the top ten for the year is The Captain Underpants series- I bought my oldest several of them. They're quite funny.

SJ

 

[minsue]

There are many of my favorites on that list and many that I cannot even fathom what someone could possibly object to.

I think I'd have to say Bridge to Terebithia would be my most precious book from that list, though.

 

[SeaCat]

A wrinkel in time surprised me. Oh well I'll have to tell my wife they banned that book.

I printed this list o compare it to my list of books I have. Those not on my list will be added soon. (All except Brave new World and Private Parts. I had them and gave them away.)

Cat

 

[Op_Cit]

Don't stop there: be a real rebel and get on a government list for buying certain books:

Anarchists Cookbook (had to fill out something to buy this one about twenty years ago)
or...
Unintended Consequences (I will audibly fall out of my chair if anyone here's read this one cover to cover.)

What was that book Tim Mcveigh had??? some supremecist thing. That's got to be on a list somewhere.

 

[shereads]

As an American, I'm supposed to say Huckleberry Finn. But my answer is The Satanic Verses.

I like books so banned that their authors have to hide out at Bono's house.

 

[shereads]

D
Unintended Consequences (I will audibly fall out of my chair if anyone here's read this one cover to cover.)

Didn't Amicus write that?

 

[SeaCat]

Don't stop there: be a real rebel and get on a government list for buying certain books:

Anarchists Cookbook (had to fill out something to buy this one about twenty years ago)
or...
Unintended Consequences (I will audibly fall out of my chair if anyone here's read this one cover to cover.)

What was that book Tim Mcveigh had??? some supremecist thing. That's got to be on a list somewhere.

Anarchists Cookbook. Ahh a nice little book. I'll have to dig it out again. (Yes I do have it.) I do like the Special Forces handbooks better though. Better written and much easier to read.

Cat

p.s. it pays to have friends.

 

[R. Richard]

Perhaps my favorite banned book is Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman.

I rode a train down from the Himalaya Mountains to the Southern tip of India. At the North of India I saw caucasion people with light olive skin. At the Sorth of India I saw caucasion people with skin as dark as any African. The light live skin people and the black skin people are the same race of Indians. They are all caucasion.

I had to sit in a meeting and listen as several college educated people got up and slammed Little Black Sambo as an insult against the Negro race. I then told them the information from my second paragraph, above. I then asked them for an explanation. I am still waiting for my explanation.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Where's Waldo?

Why in the world would that be banned? Isn't it a picture book where you pick out all the Waldo's? I think I have one upstairs...

 

[SeaCat]

Perhaps my favorite banned book is Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman.

I rode a train down from the Himalaya Mountains to the Southern tip of India. At the North of India I saw caucasion people with light olive skin. At the Sorth of India I saw caucasion people with skin as dark as any African. The light live skin people and the black skin people are the same race of Indians. They are all caucasion.

I had to sit in a meeting and listen as several college educated people got up and slammed Little Black Sambo as an insult against the Negro race. I then told them the information from my second paragraph, above. I then asked them for an explanation. I am still waiting for my explanation.

I think you will be waiting for a long time for this answer my friend.

Cat

 

[Op_Cit]

Didn't Amicus write that?

Actually a lifelong democrat wrote it. Seriously. But from what I've heard he's had to leave the U.S. since.

Anarchists Cookbook. Ahh a nice little book. I'll have to dig it out again. (Yes I do have it.) I do like the Special Forces handbooks better though. Better written and much easier to read.

Damn not in my library. I do have the SAS one tho--

 

[fieryjen]

Let's see... I'm in this mood to just list something for no particular reason (sorry), so here goes:

As part of English class
Huckleberry Finn,
To kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies

"Voluntarily"
Harry Potter
The Witches (in German)
Anastasia Krupnik (also in German - why the hell are they challenged?)
James and the giant Peach (also in German)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I think I read A Wrinkle in Time, but I'm not sure because that would have been in german also, and the title is only approximately the same.

There's quite a few books on there that I still want to read though, I just haven't gotten around to it because I'm a busy college kid. I'm also on all sorts of govertment lists already, so that's already checked off my "100 things to do before you die" list.

 

[rgraham666]

Of Mice and Men is my favourite among the banned.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I pick 1984 for the sheer irony value.

Re: "Little Black Sambo" - the last time I talked about this with someone, I got the impression that there might be multiple versions of the pictures to it. The one I saw had very caricatured images of native peoples in it - large, clownish, dead-black figures with large red lips and at times rather vacuous expressions. I could see people protesting it. Which is a shame, because I remember thinking at the time that the text itself was quite a nice little kids' book.

Shanglan

 

[AppleBiter]

"The Catcher In The Rye" by JD Salinger, hands down. It's my favorite book of all time.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Oh, and a good word for Swift's "The Drapier's Letters." There's no "banned" quite like "If we can figure out who you are, we will hang you" banned.

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

Funny, I didn't see Autobiography of a Flea on the list. Read that one years ago.

It was odd, though seeing how many of them have been made into films.

 

[R. Richard]

My point with "Little Black Sambo" is that many people protest books because of some misunderstanding, rather than because of some substantive issue.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What was that book Tim Mcveigh had??? some supremecist thing. That's got to be on a list somewhere.

That might have been "The Turner Diaries", a fictionalized account of an apocalyptic race war in the USA.

 

[shereads]

I pick 1984 for the sheer irony value.

Re: "Little Black Sambo" - the last time I talked about this with someone, I got the impression that there might be multiple versions of the pictures to it. The one I saw had very caricatured images of native peoples in it - large, clownish, dead-black figures with large red lips and at times rather vacuous expressions. I could see people protesting it. Which is a shame, because I remember thinking at the time that the text itself was quite a nice little kids' book.

Shanglan

I had the version you're talking about when I was a kid. Sambo wore a bone through his nose. It started making me uncomfortable at some point, although I didn't know why.

If you've seen Gone With the Wind in a theatrical re-release during the last fifteen years, audiences don't like it when Scarlett O'Hara slaps her slave Prissy for being so lazy and shiftless.

"Manhattan" was funny when Woody Allen first made it. Watch it now, and see if you still laugh when he dumps his 17-year-old lover.

How are some authors and filmmakers able to do work that doesn't become dated, in style or content? Is it just a matter of context?


[/threadjack]

 

[Op_Cit]

That might have been "The Turner Diaries", a fictionalized account of an apocalyptic race war in the USA.

doh! that's it. It's going to be a jeapardy question sooner or later...

I think that's my aspiration in writing: to have a book banned.

Come to think of it, last year there was a book banned by a federal judge from being sold. It lasted about six months (I think they had to cave when so many amicus briefs came in from everywhere). But I'm certain that's another one that'll get you on a gov. list for buying it. It was about the IRS.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Perhaps my favorite banned book is Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman.

I rode a train down from the Himalaya Mountains to the Southern tip of India. At the North of India I saw caucasion people with light olive skin. At the Sorth of India I saw caucasion people with skin as dark as any African. The light live skin people and the black skin people are the same race of Indians. They are all caucasion.

I had to sit in a meeting and listen as several college educated people got up and slammed Little Black Sambo as an insult against the Negro race. I then told them the information from my second paragraph, above. I then asked them for an explanation. I am still waiting for my explanation.

I read the book many years ago when I was a child. I didn't see anything wrong with it then and I still don't. Sambo was a sharp kid and the story was set in India anyhow.

 

[sophia jane]

I think I've only read 8. Guess I need to get busy.

What amazes me, as a mom, is the number of kids' books on here that my son reads. I seriously have to wonder what people are thinking. I mean, why are these books challenged/banned?? The Goosebumps series? Just don't get it.

I found a different list on the net last night and it said the most banned book of all time, at least in the US I guess (and I don't know how accurate this site was), is To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel absolutely blessed that I had a good education- I read that book in middle school, if I remember right. I should read it again...

Anyway, I'm sure it's an old saying all of us have heard, but my grandmother's favorite saying was always "Celebrate freedom- read a banned book."

SJ

 

[Samandiriel]

I love the majority of the books on that list............cool.

 

[oggbashan]

Many of the books in the list are RECOMMENDED reading in UK Schools.

The most challenged author is Enid Blyton.

Other challenged authors are Sapper; John Buchan; Edgar Wallace. They reflect their times. Villains are crop-headed Prussians, wily Orientals, or smarmy Italians. Their adjectives are more challenging than mine.

They wrote good entertaining adventure stories for their time but are now seen as racist. They are an education in how what was acceptable is no longer allowed.

Og