The Sportslady's Book Club

Celebrate your freedom to read... because it's Banned Books Week!

Does anyone else find it disturbing that Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is the third most frequently challenged book at the American Library Association?

I was just checking out this list of the most frequently banned books. Some of them make more sense than others, like The Anarchist Cookbook. And let's face it... nobody wants to see The New Joy of Gay Sex in their elementary school's media center.

Though I haven't read all (or even most) of the frequently challenged books, there are several I read as a kid, and a few I read as an adult:

4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (required reading in school)
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
8. Forever by Judy Blume (interestingly enough, my dad just bought me a copy of this one)
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (One of my favorites. There's an animated movie version of it that we watched in grade school.)
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (required reading)
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Cried like an idiot when I read it)
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
77. Carrie by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell