'To Kill a Mockingbird' and other popular banned books

Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' turns an impressive 58 on July 11. The book, which follows the trial of a black man represented by a white lawyer in the 1930s, is considered very controversial due in large part to racial slurs that are found frequently throughout the text, in addition to references to rape. These factors have contributed to its being banned many times since it was first published, in some cases very recently.

But Lee’s book isn’t the only banned book in the US. The following books are all featured in the Library of Congress’ exhibit ‘Books that Shaped America,” and have all been banned, challenged, or censored.

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‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ - Mark Twain - This controversial classic by Mark Twain has been frequently banned since 1885, when it was first banned in Concord, MA. Most complaints point to the book’s racist content.

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‘Fahrenheit 451’ - Ray Bradbury - Bradbury’s book is literally about a world in which book are burned. Ironic, no? Instead of setting the book aflame, a middle school in Irvine, CA utilized a version of the novel that blacked out choice “unacceptable” words.

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‘The Catcher in the Rye’ - J.D. Salinger - Several schools have banned this book repeatedly, calling it “blasphemous,” “obscene,” and “filthy.”

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‘Howl’ - Allen Ginsberg - Beat poet Ginsberg’s book has been banned because it describes homosexual acts.

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‘Beloved’ - Toni Morrison - Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winner is often assigned in high schools, at which point parents tend to complain about its violent and sexual content that includes a mention of bestiality.

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‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ - Dee Brown - Dee Brown’s book relays US history from an American Indian viewpoint, telling about the country’s growth and expansion into the west. A Wisconsin school district official chose to ban it in 1974, in case it might be controversial.

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‘The Words of Cesar Chavez’ - Cesar Chavez - The Tucson Unified School District dissolved its Mexican-American Studies program for legal reasons, at which time it also banned many books, including the works of Chavez.

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‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ - Zora Neale Hurston - Parents of students in Advanced English classes in a Virginia high school did not approve of the sexual content and language used in Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel, which has also been made into a movie starring Halle Berry.

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‘Gone With the Wind’ - Margaret Mitchell - Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which was also turned into an Academy Award-winning film, has been banned in many places for its controversial depictions of slavery and use of racist terms.

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‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ - Robert A. Heinlein - The adult themes in this book were subjected to parental disapproval in Mercedes, TX, and parents were soon given more control to censor their children's reading assignments.

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‘Moby-Dick; or The Whale’ - Herman Melville - The lengthy novel about the white whale was banned from a Texas school district’s advanced English classes because it “conflicted with community values.”

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‘Where the Wild Things Are’ - Maurice Sendak - Parents and librarians have found this story dark and disturbing.

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‘The Great Gatsby’ - F. Scott Fitzgerald - A Baptist college in South Carolina tried to ban Fitzgerald’s classic novel because of its references to sex.

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‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ - Harper Lee - Some educators consider the Pulitzer Prize-winning book to be degrading, obscene, and racist.

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‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ - Boston Women’s Health Book Collective - This groundbreaking book about female sexuality and anatomy has been challenged since around the time of its publication, due to accusations of it promoting homosexuality and disapproval of use of the word “vagina.”

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‘The Call of the Wild’ - Jack London - From inclusion in Nazi book-burnings to garden variety bans in Italy, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, people take issue with this book’s gory violence, dark tone, and “radical” content.

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‘Catch-22’ - Joseph Heller - This book was removed in 1972 from a high school curriculum and library in Ohio. However, in 1976, the District Court ruled to overturn the ban.

(Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

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‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’ - Alfred C. Kinsey - Kinsey’s groundbreaking study was banned from publication abroad and heavily criticized in the States for asking men and women questions about their sex lives.

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‘Native Son’ - Richard Wright - Wright’s book has been challenged or banned in at least eight states due to claims about depictions of graphic sex and violence.

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‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’ - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Stowe’s slave novel upset those who would see it censored with its depiction of slavery in America.

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‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ - Malcolm X and Alex Haley - Human rights activist Malcolm Little (also known as Malcolm X) co-wrote this autobiography, which has been called a “how-to manual” for crime, and “anti-white” by those who think it deserves to be banned.

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‘The Scarlet Letter’ - Nathaniel Hawthorne - This book has been banned due to claims that it’s sinful and doesn’t align with community values.

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‘Invisible Man’ - Ralph Ellison - This National Book Award-winner was banned from high schools in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Washington for its explorations of black nationalism and Marxism.

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‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ - Ernest Hemingway - Hemingway’s book was declared nonmailable by the US Post Office shortly after its publication, which effectively censored the book’s distribution.

(Photo: Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ - Tennessee Williams - When this popular play was made into a popular movie, the director censored out a number of scenes to cut down on the show’s sexual content.

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‘Leaves of Grass’ - Walt Whitman - This book was seen as overly sensual by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice when it was first published, and some bookstores in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York advised their customers not to buy it.

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‘The Grapes of Wrath’ - John Steinbeck -

Steinbeck’s book was banned in Kern County, CA, the setting where its story takes place. Objectors complained of profane language and sexual references. The book has also been banned internationally in places like Turkey.

(Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

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‘The Jungle’ - Upton Sinclair - This books allegedly socialist views mean that it’s been banned in places like Yugoslavia, East Germany, South Korea, and Boston.

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‘The Red Badge of Courage' - Stephen Crane - Parents in the Bay School District lodged complaints about this book with the school board. Many have said that the book is too violent.

(Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

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‘In Cold Blood’ - Truman Capote - Complaints of profanity, sex, and violence earned Capote’s book a spot on the banned list, but it has since been brought back.

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