Here’s the next installment of the 100 Banned Books series.
21
TITLE: The Great Gilly Hopkins
AUTHOR: Katherine Paterson
ISBN: 0690038380
Plot Summary: An 11-year old foster child strugles with dreams of her beautiful mother and schemes against anyone who tries to befriend her.
Complaints: Offensive language
Solonor Says Ban It Because: We have enough real snot-nosed kids without celebrating another foul-mouthed brat! I don’t care if she is frustrated at being passed from person-to-person like an unwanted present.
Links
Official Katherine Paterson Website
22
TITLE: A Wrinkle in Time
AUTHOR: Madeleine L’Engle
ISBN: 0440498058
Plot Summary: Meg and Charles journey through space with their friend, Calvin, to rescue their father, who disappeared while working on a wrinkle in time.
Complaints: Offensive language, undermines religious beliefs
Challenged at the Polk City, Fla. Elementary School (1985) by a parent who believed that the story promotes witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons. Challenged in the Anniston Ala. schools (1990). The complainant objected to the book’s listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil.
Solonor Says Ban It Because: More fantasy claptrap! Will it take a miracle from God to show you that magic doesn’t exist?
Links
teenreads.com – A Wrinkle in Time
23
TITLE: Go Ask Alice
AUTHOR: anonymous
ISBN: 0689817851
Plot Summary: The diary of a 15-year-old girl who struggles with drug addiction.
Complaints: Offensive language, drug use, sexual themes
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Girls should not think insecure, conflicted, angry thoughts while going through puberty!
Links
Go Ask Alice: Columbia University’s Health Question and Answer Service
24
TITLE: Fallen Angels
AUTHOR: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 0590409433
Plot Summary: Richie is a 17-year-old black kid from Harlem, who gets sent to Vietnam in 1967. This tells the story of his year of active duty and the horrors of war.
Complaints: Offensive language, violence
Solonor Says Ban It Because: This is like that ‘Red Badge of Courage’ thing. If we keep teaching kids how bad war is, they aren’t going to want to go!
Links
Web English Teacher
25
TITLE: In the Night Kitchen
AUTHOR: Maurice Sendak
ISBN: 0064434362
Plot Summary: A fantasy story about Mickey’s nighttime adventure in the baker’s kitchen.
Complaints: Nudity (Mick loses his pajamas when he falls in the kitchen.)
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Smut, pure and simple. Child pornography is what it is.
Links
Maurice Sendak Poster
26
TITLE: The Stupids (series)
AUTHOR: Harry Allard
ISBN: 0395253772
Plot Summary: The Stupid family is…well…stupid.
Complaints: They’re..um..stupid.
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Tom Arnold. Enough said.
Links
Wielding the Red Pen – Through the Eyes of a Child
27
TITLE: The Witches
AUTHOR: Roald Dahl
ISBN: 0141301104
Plot Summary: This is where Harry Potter comes from! The seven-year-old hero of this story is orphaned in an automobile accident and lives with his aged, cigar-smoking grandmother, a retired witchophile. Even though she tells him everything he needs to know to identify witches, he inadvertently find himself in the midst of the annual convention of all the witches of England and discovers The Grand High Witch’s plot to destroy every child in England. Before he can escape, he is turned (permanently) into a mouse. With the help of his grandmother, he turns the tables on the coven and the witches suffer the same fate.
Complaints: Promotes witchcraft
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Again with the fantasy, magic and witches…won’t you ever learn that teaching evil leads to evil?
Links
Daily Illini – Celebration and Protest
28
TITLE: The New Joy of Gay Sex
AUTHOR: Charles Silverstein
ISBN: 0060924381
Plot Summary: An educational sex tome for gay men.
Complaints: Sex, homosexual themes, pornographic
Solonor Says Ban It Because: It’s so…um…gay…
29
TITLE: Anastasia Krupnik (series)
AUTHOR: Lois Lowry
ISBN: 0440408520
Plot Summary: A 10-year old writes in her green notebook about what it’s like to grow up in this twisted world.
Complaints: Profanity, underage drinking
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Just another invitation to flout authority.
Links:
Books Banned or Challenged in Wisconsin
30
TITLE: The Goats
AUTHOR: Brock Cole
ISBN: 0374425752
Plot Summary: A boy and a girl at summercamp are stripped and left on an island as a cruel prank. They run away and try to hide until the girl’s mother will come on Parent’s Weekend.
Complaints: Profanity, nudity
Presents ideas and situations that are inappropriate for children of middle school age.
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Protect our young! This will encourage fornication and all sorts of deviousness.
Links:
Beat 13 – This Column Will Be Banned
NEXT: 100 Banned Books (31-40)
This is the most enertaining website that I have every seen! Surely this is all some big joke! I just can’t stop laughing at
“TITLE: Fallen Angels
Solonor Says Ban It Because: This is like that ‘Red Badge of Courage’ thing. If we keep teaching kids how bad war is, they aren’t going to want to go!” or
“TITLE: The Stupids (series)
Solonor Says Ban It Because: Tom Arnold. Enough said.”
Where do you get your material? Some hysterical God-fearing woman who lives down the street?
Please! Publish this stupid nonsense! Show the world! You’ll make MILLIONS!
WHOOPS! It really is a joke! My apologies, I should have explored your website more.
“NOTE: The comments I make are extremely silly examples of book banning logic. They are not serious. I didn’t think I had to point this out, but apparently some people don’t grasp the concept of sarcasm.”
I was searching the internet for reasons why A Wrinkle in Time should be banned, and this site popped up first…
Looks like I was too sarcastic to realize your sarcasm.
What? You were lying about the millions? Now, I’m depressed.