Another reason I write

Did you know that in 1931 China banned ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, because the story portrays animals and humans on the same level? It's true. Hm. I guess that it's too bad that I not only read it, but also wrote my 50-page thesis on it.

In celebration of ALA's Banned Book Week, I thought that I would share my brush with the dangerous world of banned books. In addition, I found this list of books that have been banned at some point in the United States. Aren't you glad that we have that pesky First Amendment to keep things like this from...oh wait. Just as an experiment, I've marked those I've had the pleasure of enjoying.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (6th grade)
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume (3rd grade)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (college)
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (9th grade)
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner (college)
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (7th grade)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (9th grade)
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (9th grade)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (10th grade)
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell (4th grade)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (6th grade)
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (um....my grandmother read it to be before I could read)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz (6th grade)
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz (6th grade)
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz (5th grade)
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot (10th grade)
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (college)
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (college)
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (college)
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl (5th grade)
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (9th grade)
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (college)
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

I've read 22 of these titles, seen all of the Stephen King books in their movie form, and have several of the others on my To Be Read list. Apparently, I am a fan of the forbidden fruit. Who would have guessed?