The Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2006

I found this information on a blog from someone in ALA, and thought we should all be aware of what books were most often challenged last year (and beyond)

Banned Books Week September 29 through October 6, 2007

Where to begin? How about with the most frequently challenged books of 2006--

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group; (Vaughn read this one to us)

2. Gossip Girls series by Cecily Von Ziegesar for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;

3. Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for sexual content and offensive language;

4. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

6. Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;

7. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher for homosexuality and offensive language;

8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

9. Beloved by Toni Morrison for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group; and

10. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.


The best novels of the 20th Century (according to the Radcliffe Publishing Institute)--here's the top 30--the titles in bold have been banned or challenged:

1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

3. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

5. The Color Purple, Alice Walker

6. Ulysses, James Joyce

7. Beloved, Toni Morrison

8. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

9. 1984, George Orwell

10. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

11. Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov

12. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

13. Charlotte's Web, EB White

14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

15. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

16. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

17. Animal Farm, George Orwell

18. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

19. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

20. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

21. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

22. Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne

23. Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

24. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

25. Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

26. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

27. Native Son, Richard Wright

28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

29. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway