Banned Books, 2

And a few more I found:

1) "Canterbury Tales" (outright banned as recently as 1928; a few places still use editions with certain words deleted. As if anyone knows what they really are anyway...)
2) "Just Right Family: Cabbage Patch Kids Series" (used ungrammatical writing. Finally, a reason I can get behind, LOL)
3) Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit" (encourages occult activities. Because every man wants not one but two nagging wives on his case)
4) "Diary of Anne Frank" (in 1983, it was declared a "real downer"; in 1998, pornographic)
5) Penny Hayden's "Confidence" (along with several other books in a public library was the target of a self-appointed censor, who whited out certain words and sexually explicit phrases. When I worked in a bookstore, we ran into this as well. Where do people find the time?)
6) "Myths and Their Meanings" (stories about figures like Zeus and Apollo "threaten Western civilizations foundations." Now, I am no classical scholar, but I thought that Greek myths were part of Western civ's foundations...)
7) Ibsen's "A Doll's House" (propagates feminist views. You know, things like individual choice and pesky concepts like that)
8) "Walter the Farting Dog" (used the words "fart" or "farting" 24 times. Who has time to count them??? And if you're going to ban a book for farting, you might as well go after Canterbury Tales. Oh, wait a minute--they did)
9) "Moby Dick" (in 1996, it was stated that MD "conflicts with the values of the community." What, they're against whaling? Or crazy seamen? Can I vote to ban it for being BORING?)
10) "Froggy Went a-Courting" (again in 1996, Froggy's "nefarious activities", including speeding away from the cat police, set a bad example)
11) The "Captain Underpants" books (teaches kids to not obey authority or the law--"including God's laws"--as well as improper spelling, making fun of what people wear, and poor nutrition. I always suspected I was going to hell for eating Twinkies, overuse of spell-check, and making fun of people wearing gauchos. Now I know it.)
12) Samule Richardson's "Pamela" (banned by the Catholic Church in 1744, still in effect in 1906)
13) "Twelfth Night" (again in 1996--what was in the water that year? It has "the effect of encouraging or supporting homosexuality as a possible lifestyle alternative")
14) Shel Silverstein's "A Light in the Attic" (among many other things, it "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them")
15) Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" (burned by the Nazis for Sinclair's socialist viewpoint. But not, strangely, for his disgusting revelations about what is actually in sausages)
16) Bertrice Small's "To Love Again" (declared "pornographic". How do I get someone to declare MY books porn???)
17) "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" (challenged as recently as 2002. No funny reason given, I just really liked this book when I was a kid and would hate to see it removed from any library)
18) "Zen Buddhism" ("details the teachings of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as their religion." And wouldn't THAT be horrible? I've been on the wrong path the last few years, people, and it must have been due to reading one book about Buddhism...)
19) Wallace Irving's "The Fan Club" (1974, someone was told it is "not library policy to purchases formula-written commercial fiction." If that was so, we would all be reading, say Frantzen or Foer all the time every day, and I would have to jump out a window)

There you have it. :) I went to see the new Pride and Prejudice movie today, and will blog about it tomorrow.