Story Booth: Ban Me
Banned Stories
Read one of these controversial and banned stories from the list below! You may find a familiar book or something new. Each of these books has been banned, burned or both.
Burned
-
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
-
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
-
Ulysses - James Joyce
Racial Slurs
-
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
-
Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
-
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
-
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Language
-
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
-
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
-
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
-
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Sexual References
-
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
-
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
-
​The Color Purple - Alice Walker
-
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Political & Religious
-
1984 - George Orwell
-
Animal Farm - George Orwell
-
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
-
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Violence
-
Beloved - Toni Morrison
-
​Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
-
Native Son - Richard Wright
-
The Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Controversial Authors
Ernest Hemingway:
Hemingway, a well known and respected author was controversial for his raw rhetoric. Some of Hemingway's books were burned or banned due to sexual references and violence.
J.K. Rowling
Rowling's Harry Potter book series is the most banned book in the United States. Due to its witchcraft and sorcery many religious groups have banned it. Rowling does not mind being banned but hopes parents will help expand a child's imagination.
Toni Morrison
Morrison's work is often banned due to its pornographic language. The goal of Morrison's work is to explore race and gender socially and historically.
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut is on the list of controversial authors due to his Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) novel. This novel involves war, mortality, homosexuality, and the traumas of war. It has been labeled as blasphemous and excessive in its obscenities.