Book banning and burnings have existed since the earliest days of written text. It’s not a new practice, nor is it one that’s died out with history. The earliest example of banned books happened between 259 and 210 BC in China. Then-Emperor Shih Huang Ti reportedly killed 460 scholars to control the narrative of history in his time. In 212 BC, he began burning all the books in his kingdom, keeping only a single copy of each book for the Royal Library. Those were eventually destroyed, too.
Since then, things have changed, but that doesn’t mean books are immune. Quite the contrary, in fact. One of the most famous examples of a book ban, and burning, was in Nazi Germany when Hitler ordered the destruction of all books written by Jews, communists, and others who Hitler saw as a threat to the regime and its ideology.
But of course, that’s not the only time books have faced the threat of banning or burning. In fact, even today there are efforts underway to remove books from schools for a number of reasons, most of which have skewed to the sociopolitical. It remains to be seen how successful those efforts will be, but if there’s one thing history has taught us on this subject it’s that usually when books are banned, there’s just no good reason to explain why. Such as…
10. Bridge To Terabithia
Katherine Paterson’s children’s book Bridge to Terabithia has been constantly under fire since its release in 1977. The beloved children’s book follows Jess Aaron as he befriends his neighbor Leslie Burke. The two build an imaginary kingdom in a forest close to their home.
The first instance of the book being challenged happened in 1986 in Nebraska. The reason? Profanity such as ‘oh Lord’ and the word ‘Lord’ are used as expletives. In 1990 Burlington, Connecticut, the children’s book was challenged for similar reasons and for promoting a negative view of life for children. Then things really took off, and the book became challenged at least once a year.
Between 1992 and 2002, it was challenged repeatedly across Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Kansas, Maine, California, and Texas. While it was usually for profanity, it sometimes extended to crazier things like one case in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where it was accused of referencing witchcraft. Another Pennsylvania town, Pulaski, complained that the book showed disrespect for adults and an elaborate fantasy world that might confuse children.
As time has gone on, the issue with Bridge to Terabithia has subsided. Still, now and then, the book is again thrust into the spotlight. This was especially true in 2007 when Disney released the film adaptation of the famous book.
9. Catch-22
Joseph Heller’s World War II novel Catch-22, published in 1961, is an undeniable classic. The novel follows Captain John Yossarian, a US Air Force bombardier who doesn’t want to die. However, there’s no escaping service, referencing the draft experienced in various wars throughout history.
Catch-22 became such a controversial book because of how much love and praise it received from the younger generation in 1961 and beyond. As the Vietnam War began, the themes and message of the book meshed with anti-war sentiments. On the other side of the spectrum, people were angry with the book’s irreverent handling of war as a topic.
As time has gone on, the book garnered more praise than when it debuted in the early ’60s, but it’s also gained negative attention too. While nowhere near as many challenges have fallen on Catch-22 as some of the other books constantly attacked, it’s still received some high-profile fights. In 1972, in Strongsville, Ohio, the book was pulled from libraries for its profane language. This became a full-on legal battle between students and teachers. Further banning attempts were made in 1974 in Dallas, Texas, and Snoqualmie, Washington, for its profane description of women.
8. The Color Purple
The Color Purple, released in 1982, is still being challenged to death to this day. One of the last known attempts was in North Carolina in 2013, although it avoided a ban. But this is hardly the only instance since the first attempt at an Oakland, California high school in 1984. The book has been the target of attacks, challenges, and bans for over four decades.
Alice Walker’s tragic tale, written in the form of letters, is set in rural Georgia as a young Celia writes letters to God, documenting the traumas and triumphs of growing up. The book is an intense tale of sexism, racism, and poverty, with scenes that are a lot for the average reader to take in.
From 1984 to 2002, the book was challenged in California, Wyoming, Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Connecticut, Florida, Texas, West Virginia, and Ohio. A lot of the reasons range from its depictions of sexual assault, homosexuality, incest, drug abuse, race relations, and negative depictions of black men. Walker has somewhat responded to the bans, saying she’s used to it. However, she believes that banning books means depriving teenagers of the opportunity to learn something new that can be helpful to them as they grow into adults.
7. Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a case filled with irony. The 1953 classic is set in a dystopian future where books are banned, and the irony doesn’t stop there. Technology is a major part of society in 2047, and firefighters are creating more fires than they’re putting out, usually confiscating and burning books. It follows Guy Montag, a fireman, who questions why books were banned to begin with. The reason is eerily like where we are today. It’s about controlling the narrative and diminishing opinions by manufacturing consensus.
The themes of Fahrenheit 451 are fairly simple. It’s a story about technology and its potential for causing more problems than it solves. The book mainly deals with dissatisfaction and knowledge versus ignorance; a civilization numbed and consumed by technology.
Fahrenheit 451 started getting challenged at every corner under the guise of profanity and discussion about drugs. However, it’s been far more focused on the fact that the book discusses the limitations of free speech and the idea of censorship. For a country that promotes the first amendment, the act of getting books banned goes against that very idea of free speech. The book has been altered, censored, challenged, and outright banned in various states, districts, and schools for over half a century. In a lot of places, it’s remained banned.
The book envisioned a distant future where information was kept secret and society was misled to protect them from the truth by allowing citizens to exist in ignorance. Fahrenheit 451 was set in 2049, but here in 2022, we see examples of Bradbury’s book coming to fruition.
6. The Catcher in the Rye
Everyone has at least heard of the controversial book The Catcher in the Rye, written by J. D. Salinger. From 1961 to 1982, Salinger’s infamous novel was the most heavily censored book in US schools and libraries.
The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden Caulfield as he struggles to grow up in mid-20th century New York. The book is narrated from the bed of a mental hospital as Holden recounts getting expelled, clashing with other students, dropping out, living in Manhattan, battling to ascend to adulthood, and focusing on themes like a loss of innocence. A significant point in this novel is the idea that children are innocent and authentic, while adults are phonies. As one might imagine, this can cause some controversy. But ultimately, The Catcher in the Rye is a tragic tale of teenagers’ isolation and loneliness when they grow into adults.
The first time The Catcher in the Rye was challenged was in 1960. An 11th-grade Oklahoma teacher was fired for teaching the book. While she appealed the decision and got her job back, the book was banned because of this instance. This set off a fever of ban attempts against the 1951 novel. Between 1986 and 2000, after the fever ban subsided, it was still targeted a further nine times.
The book is constantly under fire because of its use of profanity, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual references, and being defamatory towards God. Some less common reasons, such as the book being anti-whites, violent, and immoral, were also cited. A primary concern was that it encouraged teens to rebel against their parents, schools, and the system. It’s a laundry list of complaints that Salinger never bothered responding to. What’s worse is several shootings, including the infamous assassination of John Lennon, had Catcher in the Rye attached to the perpetrators.
5. The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give is one of the more recent books to face intense pushback and ban attempts. It follows Starr Carter’s journey of rising against police brutality against minorities in the United States after witnessing her best friend get killed at the hands of the police. Given the way race relations worldwide continue to deteriorate, it’s no surprise that The Hate U Give is being fought at every turn. Since its release in 2017, there’s been an intense battle across all 50 states to get this book as far away from children as possible.
Author Angie Thomas was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. She addressed issues of police brutality, racism, classism, and social inequalities. In 2018, in Katy, Texas, the book was removed from the entire school district after a few parents complained about Thomas’s book. It caused an uproar amongst librarians and local parents, which eventually resulted in the book’s return to libraries but only available to students with parental consent. The original ban was for the discussions of drug use, sexuality, and race.
In 2019, a middle school in Springfield, Missouri, had the book challenged and eventually banned. In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the Fraternal Order of Police Tri-County Lodge #3 sought to have the book removed from reading lists at local high schools. Many places wanted the book out of schools because of its themes of race. In the police’s case, it was accused of “almost an indoctrination of distrust of police, and we’ve got to put a stop to that.”
In 2021, The Hate U Give was challenged again for its implied anti-police message. This was after the summer of 2020, which saw a racial reckoning and the George Floyd protests when the book gained popularity again and shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, where it has, collectively, spent over 190 weeks.
4. The Hunger Games
In 2008, Suzanne Collins released her dystopian sci-fi The Hunger Games, and almost immediately, it became a global sensation. The book follows Katniss Everdeen as she takes her sister’s place in a barbaric game called ‘The Hunger Games’, where the only way to win is to survive. Between book and movie sales, the Hunger Games franchise made billions of dollars.
The book isn’t without controversy. The world built by Collins splits the United States into 12 districts and the Capital. Each district essentially serves the Capital. Therefore, they are classified as lower-class citizens. Many accusations have been thrown at the series, including it being anti-ethnic, satanic, religious views, anti-family sentiment, violence, offensive language, and sexuality. Some complaints against the Hunger Games don’t hold much water, like the idea of religious subtext, as the books have no religion in them at all. Many have argued that ‘hope’ counts as a religion, but this only makes the argument weaker and slightly bizarre.
These aren’t the biggest issues found within the pages of this famous dystopian series. The Hunger Games has been accused of promoting anti-government sentiment because it explores an uprising across the three books. The symbolic three-finger salute, which became a sign of resistance against tyranny, has been used in real-world settings, which hasn’t helped. In 2020, students at a school in Thailand were using the symbol in front of flag poles. In 2021, medics in Yangon, Myanmar, did the same to support Aung San Suu Kyi, the ousted civilian leader. These varying themes have made the series the target of countless attempts and successful bans around the world. It was most challenged in 2010, 2011, and 2013.
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four had an intense international effort against his book since the 50s when Soviet Russia banned and burned the book for its anti-communist views. On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, the book was banned in Jackson County, Florida 1981, for being pro-communist. But the book was most recently challenged again in 2017, in Idaho, for having excessive violence and sexually charged language.
So what is Nineteen Eight-Four about? Orwell’s dystopian novel, published in 1949, follows Winston Smith (in what was then a future vision of 1984) in a world that’s fallen victim to endless wars, omnipresent government surveillance, propaganda, and historical whitewashing. Themes of political distrust, different political systems, and rebellion are the core themes of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The book’s ban efforts usually are centered on its themes of government, with many taking away a message of pro-communism when the book is anti-communist and anti-government. The themes of rebellion against the system have also been the basis for bans around the world in governments that don’t take kindly to the idea of an uprising like Stalin in the 1950s.
2. Slaughterhouse-Five
In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut published Slaughterhouse-Five, a satirical sci-fi that follows Billy Pilgrim as he becomes unstuck in time and is abducted by aliens. The book deals a lot with exploring the horrors of World War II by using Pilgrim, a soldier, as the means of showing how his life has been sacrificed. When he’s unstuck in time, it’s the result of shell shock while being a prisoner of war. It’s then that he relives the moments of his life.
Nothing really sticks out as controversial at the outset, but a lot of themes in the book discuss free will and the cost of war explored through Billy’s relationship with time. It’s an interesting book that makes us realize our own mortality and how time doesn’t provide free will because changing time isn’t possible. So why was it banned?
Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the most challenged books of the 20th century. It was the subject of a First Amendment case that reached the Supreme Court with Island Trees School District v. Pico in 1982. While that case went the way of the students, resulting in the ban being lifted, it’s still been challenged since then. An earlier example of Slaughterhouse-Five being banned was in 1972 when a circuit judge called the book “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.”
Usually, the challenges on Slaughterhouse-Five are regarding is profane language or strong sexual content, but some have argued the anti-war sentiment ruffled a few feathers back in the ’70s and ’80s. Even after all these years, Vonnegut’s classic faces challenges every few years, repeating the same talking points of all those who’ve banned it before.
1. Ulysses
Ulysses, at first, was released as serialized parts in the American journal, the Little Review. In 1922, it was published in book form and is now considered a masterpiece. Set in Dublin, James Joyce tells the story of three central characters in a parallel to Homer’s Epic Poem, The Odyssey.
As revered as the book became, it was not well-received initially. The serialized parts were burned in the US in 1918, and the book was burned in Ireland and Canada in 1922. In England, it was burned in 1923 before being banned outright in 1929. The book was even the focal point of a US trial for breaking the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibited the distribution of obscene material through US mail. The case argued that the serialized episode referred to as ‘Nausicaa’ featured a moment of the main character pleasuring himself, meaning it fell into the category of obscene. While many dispute this because of Joyce’s heavy use of metaphors, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice won the case. The serialized version, and the forthcoming book, were effectively banned in the US.
The US lifted the ban on Ulysses in 1934 as obscenity laws relaxed. Hindsight has seen Ulysses as a daring experiment of its time. Controversial? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. The more reason people shouldn’t be shielded from books and instead be able to embrace them, even if they are a little controversial.