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To challenge a book is to attempt to reduce its circulation by removing or restricting it from libraries or curricula. The American Library Association releases an annual list of the 10 most challenged books. If a book is deemed to be “sexually explicit,” “offensive,” “unsuited to age group,” and/or containing disagreeable elements, it can be challenged by an individual or a group.
The 10 most challenged books in the 1990s include:
- Scary Stories: Written by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories is a series of 3 children’s books with haunting illustrations by Stephen Gammell. With titles like “Old Woman All Skin and Bone,” “The Dead Man’s Brains,” and “The Ghost with the Bloody Fingers” it’s challenged for nightmarish elements unsuited to age group.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: This is a memoir about the first sixteen years of Maya Angelou’s life. Spanning the time of the Great Depression and World War II, the book tells of her life in Arkansas and Missouri. One of the most celebrated works in American Literature, the material is challenged for encouraging premarital sex, homosexuality, and profanity.
- The Chocolate War: Considered one of the best young adult novels of all time, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier chronicles the struggles of Jerry Renault in a fictional prep school called Trinity High School. It was challenged for sexual content, vulgar language, and violence.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Mark Twain’s Great American Novel about a young white boy forming a friendship with a runaway “nigger” floating down the Mississippi on a raft is challenged for being “racist” and “unfit for children.”
- Of Mice and Men: A heartbreaking novella by Nobel laureate John Steinbeck, it details the story of two farm hand drifters during the Great Depression. It is challenged for advocating “euthanasia”, “offensive language,” and “unsuitable for age group.”
- Harry Potter: Written by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter is a series of seven books about the adventures of a boy wizard. The material is being challenged for its “focus on wizardry and magic.”
- Forever: The coming-of-age novel by Judy Blume about teenagers Katherine and Michael falling in love and doing “it” for the first time. It is challenged for loose morals and sexually explicit language.
- The Catcher in the Rye: This novel by J.D. Salinger has sold more than 65 million copies. Detailing the antiheroic antics and thoughts of Holden Caulfield, the material is challenged for offensive language, blasphemy, and low moral values.
- The Color Purple: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983, the novel chronicles the life of Celie, a black woman living in the Southern United States in the 1930s. It is challenged for “racism, homosexuality, sexually explicit material, offensive language, and unsuited to age group.”
- Fallen Angels: Written by Walter Dean Myers, this war novel is about the survival of a squad of American soldiers in the Vietnam War. It has been challenged for the use of profane language and as unsuitable for age group.
The challenging of books is a subject of much debate. Sometimes, the challenging or the banning of a book elevates the status of the book, increasing its sales substantially. For some people, reading a banned or challenged book is somewhat like eating the forbidden fruit. It’s seductive and alluring.
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