It's Banned Books week! And why are we celebrating such an occasion at the library? The American Library Association and libraries across the country are taking the week of September 26 - October 2 as a chance to spread the word that books are still frequently challenged and banned around the country (and world). As advocates for the freedom to read, libraries like ours strive to provide a wide range of material. While we always listen to our patrons' concerns and recommendations, we also recognize the need to provide information, resources, and leisure reading for all ages and lifestyles. Perhaps it's no surprise that children's books dominate the list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books for 2020, as the desire to shield children from content deemed inappropriate steers much of the resistance to various forms of literature. A quick perusal of the ALA's lists of most commonly challenged books is a stark reminder of what classics would be erased from our minds and what contemporary diversity would be missing from our shelves (and often from our children's reading lives) if the principle of intellectual freedom were not upheld.
To borrow from an essay by one of my favorite writers, Brian Doyle, "Who you are as a town is in the library. It’s why when you want to destroy a place you burn down the library. People who fear freedom fear libraries. The urge to ban a book is always an urge to put imagination in jail. But in the end you cannot imprison it, just as you cannot imprison the urge to freedom, because those things are in every soul, and there are too many souls to jail or murder them all, and that’s a fact. So a library is a shout of defiance too, if you think about it: dorn in aghaidh an dorchadas, a fist against the dark.”
The theme for this year's Banned Books Week is "Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us." In the words of the ALA, "Sharing stories important to us means sharing a part of ourselves. Books reach across boundaries and build connections between readers. Censorship, on the other hand, creates barriers." While books are less often actually banned now than in the past, the number of challenges to titles has actually risen in recent years, particularly those related to minority groups. Rather than restrict ideas, we can and should open conversations. That's what libraries are all about. But we're also all about satisfying curiosity! So if you're wondering what the most frequently challenged and banned books have been over the years, check out the following list that includes the most challenged book for each year of the last two decades (as reported by the ALA), as well as a selection of commonly banned and challenged classics, most of which were deemed "obscene" (or "smutmobile" in one case) by an offended party. How empty would your high school curriculum have been without some of those books? How many have you read? Which ones pique your interest? See any commonalities and trends? Read on to find out. (And yes, there are links to the catalog for every single one, because Maine libraries are a bounty of challenged books to request as we stand up for the freedom to read!)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie
Most frequently challenged book, 2014
Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
Most frequently challenged book, 2017
Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Chocolate War, Robert Cromier
Most frequently challenged book, 2004
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
George, Alex Gino
Most frequently challenged book, 2018-2020
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
(Candid librarian note: After my book hoarding (but primarily non-fiction reading) father died, I found a lengthy letter that he wrote as a teenager about the absolutely transcendant experience of feverishly reading this novel in one night. Take that, censors.)
Looking for Alaska, John Green
Most frequently challenged book, 2015
Most frequently challenged book, 2005
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Ulysses, James Joyce
(Candid librarian note: I was once told by a fellow librarian that Ulysses is also the most common book that people claim to have read without ever having cracked it open.)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Lady Chatterley's Lover, Women in Love, and Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
The Naked and the Dead, Normal Mailer
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, Toni Morrison
Internet Girls series, Lauren Myracle
Most frequently challenged books, 2012-2013
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Alice series, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Most frequently challenged books, 2009, 2011
1984 and Animal Farm, George Orwell
(Candid librarian note: It's astonishing how many copies of 1984 in the Minerva system, including our own, were never returned!)
And Tango Makes Three, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Most frequently challenged book, 2006-2008, 2010
Captain Underpants series, Dav Pilkey
Most frequently challenged book, 2012-2013
Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
Most frequently challenged books, 2001-2002
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
This One Summer, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Most frequently challenged book, 2016
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Native Son, Richard Wright