Talking About Banned Books

Post date: Nov 02, 2017 3:12:38 PM

Published 10/20/17

By Keegan Sullivan, '18

Above left; Kendall Carloss, ‘23, reads The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. This book has been banned many times by many different school boards. Above right; The Color Purple by Alice walker was banned by many school boards and libraries because of it’s depiction of rape, racism and violence against women.

THE GREAT GATSBY

BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic is one of the most-banned books of all time. The tale of playboy Jay Gatsby and the target of his affection, Daisy Buchanan, was “challenged” as recently as 1987, by Baptist College in Charleston, S.C. because of “language and sexual references in the book.”

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE BY J.D. SALINGER

The stream-of-consciousness story of Holden Caulfield’s coming of age has long been a controversial text for young readers. An Oklahoma teacher was fired for assigning Catcher to an 11th grade English class in 1960, and numerous school boards have banned it for its language (Holden goes on a lengthy rant about the “F” word at one point) and sexual content.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

BY HARPER LEE

This 1961 Pulitzer-Prize winning story of racism in the Deep South, told through the eyes of a young girl named Scout, has been banned mainly for its use of language, including the “N” word. A school district in Indiana challenged it in 1981, because it claimed the book represented “institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature,” according to the ALA (American Literature Association).

THE COLOR PURPLE

BY ALICE WALKER

This novel’s graphic portrayals of rape, racism, violence against women and sex have gotten it banned by school boards and libraries since its release in 1982. Another winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Color Purple was one of more than a dozen books challenged in Virginia in 2002 by a group, Parents Against Bad Books in Schools.