Censorship 2005

Posted on September 28, 2005 in Censorship

Everyone is doing the stupid and obvious thing with the ALA Banned Book list. And I am no exception! Here is my listing of the terrible works of literature that have polluted my imagination over the years:

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (and it bored me)
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman

How many is that? Fifteen? Well, I beat Kevin Drum. Does that mean everyone is going to come here now?

Just a remark about Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen: I’ve only seen a page or two of it (so I don’t count myself as having read it), but it is one book that I would strongly urge that certain adults be prohibited from reading. There is something bizarre and pedophiliac about that one, though much of this theme would certainly pass over the head of a child.

How defiled were you?

Derived from Lindsay Beyerstein.