We Like Banned Books and We Cannot Lie

The list of the American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of the 21st Century reads like a Best of Cannonball Read list. That’s no surprise, really. With books like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, Of Mice and Men, the Harry Potter series, and our most recent book club selection, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, those lists include many wonderful books that we’ve loved and recommended time and again. From CBR4 in 2012 through the end of August 2016, you all have reviewed 28 different titles, and 223 banned books in total. For the most part, you like them! Only five received lower than three stars, and one of them was TyburnBlossom’s liveblog of Fifty Shades of Grey, which even with the low rating is tremendously worthwhile read. (See which banned books Cannonballers have covered, plus their star ratings, below.)

As for the individual challenges, some we’ve heard of in the media, some are surprises. For our part, we’ve already reviewed five of the 2015 list, shown below with their position on the list and reasons for being challenged. (If I missed your review, please let me know so I can add it.):

#1 Looking for Alaska – offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group)

#2 Fifty Shades of Grey – sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”)

#4 Beyond Magenta – Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”)

#5 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”)

#7 Fun Home – violence and other (“graphic images”)

Maybe we can get all 10 covered this year!

Banned Books TBR

If you’re looking for a #BannedBooksWeek to-be-read list, we’ve got one for you. Here are all 75 books that have been in the top ten of one the frequently Challenged Book Lists since 2001:

• A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
• A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone
• Alice (series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
• Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles
• Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
• Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
• Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
• Bone (series) by Jeff Smith
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey
• Crank by Ellen Hopkins
• Crazy Lady! by Jane Leslie Conly
• Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds
• Drama by Raina Telgemeier
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
• Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
• Flashcards of My Life by Charise Mericle Harper
• Forever by Judy Blume
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
• Gossip Girl (series) by Cecily Von Ziegesar
• Habibi by Craig Thompson
• Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
• His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
• I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
• It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
• It’s So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• King & King by Linda de Haan
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Lush by Natasha Friend
• My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy by Dori Hillestad Butler
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter
• Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• Saga by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
• Scary Stories (series) by Alvin Schwartz
• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
• Taming the Star Runner by S.E. Hinton
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• The Color of Earth (series) by Kim Dong Hwa
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
• The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• The Holy Bible
• The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• ttyl by Lauren Myracle
• ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r
• (series) by Lauren Myracle
• Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
• Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
• Uncle Bobby’s Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen
• We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
• Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
• What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Or view by year at the ALA site.

Books Cannonballers Have Reviewed

Thanks to ingres77 and his mighty work on CBR statistics, we also have the list of which books we’ve reviewed the most off the ALA list, by which recent year of CBR, and their average rating. Despite our best efforts, the data is a little off, because the ALA lists Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc as a single item on their lists. So of course our two favorite series, Saga and Harry Potter are at the top of the list.

Thanks to ingres77 for keeping track of our data. Now go forth and add to your TBR list!