I found a great topic for tonight's class. I used a list of 25 banned books to discuss the First Amendment to my class. It was so much fun watching their eyes pop out at some of the books on the list.
It did allow for some interesting conversations - such as why Harry Potter was on the list, but not the Narnia series. We also discussed if the labeling of music as having explicit lyrics is censorship (they didn't think so) or the decisions Walmart makes about selling only certain items (they didn't like it).
Here is the list I used.
"Harry Potter" (Series) (J.K. Rowling)
"To Kill a Mockingbird" (Harper Lee)
"The Color Purple" (Alice Walker)
"The Outsiders" (S.E. Hinton)
"Lord of the Flies" (William Golding)
"Of Mice and Men" (John Steinbeck)
"Goosebumps" (Series) (R.L. Stine)
"How to Eat Fried Worms" (Thomas Rockwell)
"The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger)
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (Mark Twain)
"The Giver" (Lois Lowry)
"Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley)
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (Mark Twain)
"Captain Underpants" (Dav Pilkey)
"The Anarchist Cookbook" (William Powell)
"Carrie" (Stephen King)
"Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes)
"The Dead Zone" (Stephen King)
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (Maya Angelou)
"Go Ask Alice" (anonymous)
"American Psycho" (Bret Easton Ellis)
"The Chocolate War" (Robert Cormier)
"James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)
"The Pigman" (Paul Zindel)
"A Wrinkle in Time" (Madeleine L'Engle)
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What does this say about me - I have read almost all of the books on that list and loved them.
Are there any books on that list that you wouldn't let your girls read when they are older? I'm thinking I read To Kill a Mockingbird in 9th Grade. Flower for Algernon, The Adventures of Tom Sawywer, and Of Mice and Men, were all required reading for my 10th grade lit class. I wondering what the required reading contains now.
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