September 26 – October 3, 2009 is Banned Books Week.
You get two buttons today, because this issue rates high on the Becky List of Importance. It should rate high on anyone’s list. Not every book is for everybody, but once we allow a group to dictate what we can’t read, the next book on their list may take YOUR intellectual freedom away. Thank every librarian, teacher, parent, citizen, attorney, publisher, bookseller, and organization who has protected your precious right to choose your own reading. Please understand that every time a “crazy liberal” speaks out to protect And Tango Makes Three, that effort stems from the same passion that protects some of the books pictured below in a display from the Montrose location of Half Price Books in Houston, Texas.
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Some titles seen in these photos:
The Secret History of the English Language
The English Illustrated Dictionary
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Brave New World
English Literature
Sayings Usual and Unusual
New Pet
Vocabulary Builder
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Great Gatsby
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Pearl
The Lord of the Rings
The Fellowship of the Rings
The Two Towers
Catch-22
A Farewell to Arms
Harry Potter (series)
The World in a Phrase
The Koran
Song of Solomon
The Color Purple
The Holy Bible
Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary
The Da Vinci Code
Angels and Demons
The Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies
Ginsberg’s Journals
The Red Badge of Courage
The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsburg
Some banned books not pictured here:
1984
A Clockwork Orange
A Separate Peace
A Wrinkle in Time
All the King’s Men
Always Running
An American Tragedy
Animal Farm
Annie On My Mind
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Arizona Kid
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture
As I Lay Dying
Beloved
Blubber
Boys and Sex
Brideshead Revisited
Bridge to Terebithia
Cat’s Cradle
Charlotte’s Web
Crazy Lady
Cujo
Daddy’s Roommate
Earth’s Children (series)
Fade
Final Exit
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Forever
Girls and Sex
Go Ask Alice
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Gone With The Wind
Goosebumps (series)
Gossip Girl
Halloween ABC
Heart of Darkness
Heather Has Two Mommies
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In Cold Blood
In the Night Kitchen
Invisible Man
It’s So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
James and the Giant Peach
Julie of the Wolves
Killing Mr. Griffin
Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Lolita
Naked Lunch
Native Son
Of Mice and Men
On My Honor
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ordinary People
Pillars of the Earth
Private Parts
Rabbit, Run
Rebecca
Satanic Verses
Scary Stories (series)
Schindler’s List
Slaughterhouse Five
Sons and Lovers
Sophie’s Choice
Summer of My German Soldier
Taming the Star Runner
That Was Then, This Is Now
The Bluest Eye
The Boy Who Lost His Face
The Call of the Wild
The Chocolate Lover
The Dead Zone
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
The Face on the Milk Carton
The Goats
The Grapes of Wrath
The Handmaid’s Tale
The House of Spirits
The Jungle
The Kite Runner
The Naked and the Dead
The Old Man and the Sea
The Outsiders
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Sound and the Fury
The Stupids
The Sun Also Rises
The Wish Giver
The Witches
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The World According to Garp
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Tropic of Cancer
Ulysses
We All Fall Down
Whale Talk
Winnie-the-Pooh
Where’s Waldo?
Women in Love |
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Here lies originality and thought,
loving progenitors of imagination. |
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RIP Invention, Ideas, Progress, Imagination,
Originality, and Thought |
My sentiments exactly. (*hugs you*) Fight the good fight, Becky. Every day.
Thanks. Little chance of my not standing firm on this one!
Okay I haave to ask – why would Winnie the Pooh and Where’s Waldo be banned?
Notice I made no Separate Peace jokes … yes, I want credit for that
With Where’s Waldo?, I looked this one up a couple of years ago. As I recall, you can see a woman’s bare breasts in profile in a beach scene. She’s removed her bikini top to sunbathe. A small boy is splashing her with water and she’s getting up. Later editions of the book had her wearing her bikini top.
As for Winnie-the-Pooh, I have no idea.
Also, just seeing A Separate Peace on a banned books list should encourage you to defend it, not mock it.
I didn’t mock I held back … considering that book tried to kill me I think I’ve shown remarkable restraint.
Indeed!
I don’t want or need someone telling me what I can and cannot read. In turn, I will not impose such rules on anyone else.
BTW: That is my favorite HPB store in Houston.
It’s a great store. Tim and I are always finding good deals there.
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things??
I don’t know what it’s about, but the title alone makes me want to read it!
And Where’s Waldo? Really?? *shakes head*
I consider a banned books list a reading list!
Amen!
A few years back when I was still teaching freshmen, I
had the first “Harry Potter” book on my syllabus. This
was before it was a huge phenom — I think only the
first one was out in the States. I had one girl whose
parents called the department and said their daughter
could NOT read this book.
My department basically said, “You know this isn’t high
school, don’t you? It’s college. If your daughter isn’t
“allowed’ to read this book, you better rethink sending her
here.”
She stayed in the class and I didn’t hear another word
about it.
Good grief. Parenting as micro managing. My mother only stopped me from reading ONE book in my whole life, and that was when I was fourteen. Even then, she didn’t tell me I couldn’t read it. The book just disappeared from our house after she and my (older) sister read it.
I have to say — we don’t have a Half-Price here and
oh how I miss it!
It’s one of my favorite places to browse.
Really? These were all banned?
That’s two-third of my life gone, then!!!
Exactly!
YAY YOU! Thanks for getting the word out.
PS – Is it okay if we ban books by Glenn Beck?
Sadly, no. However, when I saw them on the rack tonight at Kroger, I did hiss and sneer. Does that count?
What? “The Great Gatsby” was banned? (pulls off earrings) Oh. Hell. No.