Banned Books
The descriptions of the books listed in this section on Banned Books is taken from Amazon descriptions. The reasons for being Challenged or Banned have been aggregated from information available online.
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Sold by Patricia McCormick
Formats: Hardcover, Audiobook
Description from Amazon: Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.
He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.
An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.
Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words—Simply to endure is to triumph—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?The challenges to the book:
- Sexually explicit content, as challenged by Moms for Liberty, who sometimes compare it to pornography
- Mature Themes: human trafficking and trauma
- Violence and brutality: sexual abuse, brutal and cruel treatment
(If the novel is purchased through the link above, we may receive a small commission from Amazon.)
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The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Formats: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
Description from Amazon: Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.
Toni Morrison’s body of work won a Nobel Prize in literature, but she has her nay-sayers.
- Racism for exploring the psychological effects of the desire for “white” beauty on young Black girls.
- Sexual Violence, including child molestation and incest
(If the novel is purchased through the link above, we may receive a small commission from Amazon.)
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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Formats: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover
Description on Amazon: Since his debut in 1951 as “The Catcher in the Rye,” Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with “cynical adolescent.”
Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists.
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.
The challenges that led to the banning:
- Profanity and sexual content (including a scene with a prostitute)
- Mature and sensitive themes like death, alienation, and mental health.
- Promotes rebellion
- Negative influence: cynical, behavior
- In 1970, the novel was called racist, misogynistic, blasphemous, and one school board member called it a “communist plot.”
- And of course, the novel’s link to real-world violence, i.e. David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin, contributed to further controversy.
(If this novel is purchased through the link above, we may receive a small commission from Amazon.)
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The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Format: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
Description from Amazon: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband.
In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters directly to God. The letters, spanning twenty years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women. She meets Shug Avery, her husband’s mistress and a jazz singer with a zest for life, and her stepson’s wife, Sophia, who challenges her to fight for independence. And though the many letters from Celie’s sister are hidden by her husband, Nettie’s unwavering support will prove to be the most breathtaking of all.(If the book is purchased through the link above, we may be paid a small commission.)
The Color Purple has been challenged and banned for the following:
- Sexual Content including explicit conduct, rape, incest.
- Language and Profanity
- Violence and Abuse
- Homosexuality
- Drug Use
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The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Formats: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
Description from Amazon: The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.
The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid’s Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.
“Atwood takes many trends which exist today and stretches them to their logical and chilling conclusions . . . An excellent novel about the directions our lives are taking . . . Read it while it’s still allowed.” –Houston Chronicle
The novel’s themes of oppression and control mirror the censorship it warns against:
- Mature Themes: sexual violence, rape, mature subject matter
- Religious and Political Content: Some say the novel is anti-Christian since it portrays a totalitarian theocracy that draws heavily from the Bible. Contains controversial themes on feminism, religious extremism, and politics.
- Profanity
- Content is disturbing: oppression, systemic control, and loss of agency
(If the book is purchased through the link above, we may be paid a small commission by Amazon.)