Top 5: Favorite Banned Books

It's Banned Books Week! Each year the literary world celebrates books that have been challenged by the public and encourages people to read the wonderfully written but controversial books. I try to participate by reading a book off of the banned list. Last year I read The Catcher in the Rye. I've been trying to decide what to read for this year, and discovered that seven out of the twelve books I chose for my book club this year are on the list! So I'm already ahead of myself. Go figure. These are my favorites from the banned list.

5. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

 I love Roald Dahl's books, and James and the Giant Peach is no exception. The 1990's film directed in part by Tim Burton is wonderful as well. Apparently it is on the banned list for " occasional macabre and potentially frightening content," which I guess is true but I never found it frightening.








4. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Macker

 This is a young adult novel that I read early in high school. I enjoyed it because it was a character I could empathize with - unlike most books were the girl is beautiful and smart and no one sees past her beauty, this heroine is an average teenager. She's overweight and lonely, fed up with a psychologist mother who obsesses over her, a father who constantly praises skinny women, and two troubled siblings who have left home to cause problems of their own. I lent my copy to someone and lost it, but the girl is still one of my favorite young literary characters. 




 3. The Giver by Lois Lowry

 This is one of the books I read as a child from the local library that has made a lasting impression on my life. It's set in a weird future utopia where people can only see in black and white and every aspect of their lives - from their professions to whether or not they can have children - is decided by a governing group. The main character Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories and take from an older man in the community all the things other people have lost. Every other science fiction book I've ever read, from 1984 to The Handmaid's Tale, I have compared to this book. I think it's part of the reason why I'm still partial to utopian novels.
**Fun Fact: this novel is part of the inspiration for Weezer's single My Name is Jonas from the Blue Album!


 2. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

This is another novel I read in high school with a bizarre storyline. It's about a young girl who was raped and murdered and tells the story from her viewpoint in the afterlife. She watches her friends and family and even her killer as those still alive try to move on with their lives and learn what really happened to her. It's fascinating and weird - there's a slightly creepy scene where she inhabits the body of someone to experience more of life - but I really enjoyed it. Peter Jackson directed the movie version a few years ago.





  
1. To Kill A Mockingbird  by Harper Lee

As one of the most beloved novels of all times, it's hard not to like this book. The innocence of childhood, learning right and wrong despite adversity, growing up, there are so many lessons from the only book Harper Lee ever wrote. I read this my freshman year of high school, like most American students, and remember learning some of Lee's history. When asked why she never wrote another novel, she told interviewers that she had a story to tell and told it, end of story. I found it fascinating. It's the first book that I was ever forced to analyze in an English course, something I came to love during college. The 1962 film starring Gregory Peck is nearly as classic as the book itself.