Just received the list of most frequently banned books in American schools that one could get fired for using. Oops. Taught #26 and #17 this year.
- Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
- Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
- Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
- More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
- The Witches by Roald Dahl
- Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
- Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
- Blubber by Judy Blume
- Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
- Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
- A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
- Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
- Christine by Stephen King
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
- The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
- Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
- Night Chills by Dean Koontz
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
- The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
- My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Cujo by Stephen King
- The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
- The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
- On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
- In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
- Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
- I Have to Go by Robert Munsch
- Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- The Pigman by Paul Zindel
- My House by Nikki Giovanni
- Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
I bolded the books that have been assigned as reading at my current school, or were part of the curriculum, or are available in classroom libraries. There could be more bolded on this list; this is just what I know of.
Did I mention that my seventh graders outperformed the state of Pennsylvania on math and closed the achievement gap in reading?
Banned books are bullshit. If any book should be banned, it should be the crap I confiscated repeatedly this year: I’m a Hustla’s Wife; Hood Rat; Rectangle of Lust; etc.
