Book It! Reliving #BannedBooksWeek: Banned Books I’ve Read

It’s that time of year again – the time to celebrate reading freedom. It is a week at the end of September that “highlights the value of free and open access to information.”

I live with the lifestyle that I, and everyone around me, should be able to read whatever they want. Reading is such a personal experience that I couldn’t imagine not letting someone read something because it may not agree with your stance on the book.

I mean, I didn’t stop my mom from reading Fifty Shades of Grey even though I absolutely abhor that book and everything that it stands for.

We should all be reading what we want to read – the only person who has the ability to ban someone from reading something is yourself for yourself…and then at that point it’s not so much ‘banning’ as choosing not to read it.

Most of the life lessons I’ve learned while reading have come from books that are banned or challenged, so I will always be in favour of reading freedom. Read what you like, read what you want, and don’t listen to what anyone else says.

Now that that is out of the way here is the list of the most frequently banned or challenged books I have read:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Blues Eye by Toni Morrison

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I think that is all of them…well from what I have found anyway.

What banned or challenged books have you read?

Want to book more literary fun? Take Melissa’s Journey Through The Pages here!

(Article republished with permission)