Sarah Palin Loves Banned Books
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”
— Sinclair Lewis, 1935
Governor Palin is a big reader, I hear! I’m thinking of sending her a copy of “The Witches,” by Roald Dahl. Because we all need to read more, no?
In honor of the ACLU’s celebration of banned books (an annual tradition since 1982), here are a few of Sarah’s and my favorites…
(These are books that regularly make the “hit list” for stodgy types who want to see books go bye-bye.)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley?s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O?Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
A note from A.T., re: Snopes and Sarah Palin:
“It did not totally exonerate Palin. Snopes said that list of books was never banned, and Palin never banned books in Alaska. But, what is most notable is that there are confirmed reports from a librarian that Palin questioned her three times about the consequences of book banning. Palin said that was just informational. Palin also fired the librarian in 1997 because the mayor felt she didn’t have the librarian’s “full support”. The librarian was re-instated after one day due to public outcry.”
, 
.
You know something i don’t know? I hear the supposed “banned books list” is not really true. Not that i don’t want it to be true — just to make that scary woman look bad…
September 19th, 2008 | #
I don’t know that Mrs. Palin actually reads.
You notice I did not say, “These are the books she wants banned.” This is just an all-purpose “hit list” of the titles that always pop up when people start screaming about “inappropriate” books.
I love that The Shining is included. Red rum!
September 19th, 2008 | #
EXCUSE ME???? How could any Stephen King book be on the list?!
I don’t know much about book banning and such (living in liberal Cali-for-nia, but seriously I don’t get that. They are just horror stories. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who write them. Is Dean Koontz on the list?
Insanity.
PS: Hope I am not showing my ignorance too much. But really having never been exposed to it (but I have heard of it) I am really shocked.
redrum, redrum, redrum
PSS: What about The Stand? It’s his greatest book ever, but its okay. WTH is the criteria?
PSSS: Okay I think I am done showing my lack of worldliness.
September 19th, 2008 | #
There are so many books on here that I love. And that I didn’t know was a “banned book”. Like Huck Finn, or Flowers for Algernon, or East of Eden or Brave New World. Loved those books. Yeah, I had to read those in high school, but I loved them.
And seriously, CUJO, the rabid dog, is a banned book? Why?
I must be so ignorant.
September 19th, 2008 | #
Also, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH?!? There’s a ride based on that book at California Adventures. I read this when I was seven. WHY???
Again, i must be ignorant, but in this context, I’m glad I am.
September 19th, 2008 | #
Vixen, the Stand is the greatest ever. I also love Mr. King’s writers’ manual. It’s aces.
Funsize, people are high, no? They want to take all the fun and creativity out of life. Stephen King and Roald Dahl always have someone after their books. There are a lot of people who don’t want the kids to have the graphic novels (aka illustrated novels, aka fancy comic books) in the libraries. I say, if it gets them reading, go for it. And they are pretty brilliantly drawn and written.
To those of you sending me e-mails, “Snopes sez this list is false!” No, I never said that these are the books Mrs. Palin had issues with. I am saying that these are the titles that pop up again and again when conservative types are screaming about “The children! Think about the children!” It’s always Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, the Goosebumps books, the Stephen King books. I say, let’s read.
There does seem to be some kind of issues re: Mrs. Palin and libraries. Someone wanted books banned, she was looking into it, she allegedly tried to get her town’s librarian fired…
Who knows what happened. I wasn’t there. Just sayin’ — smoke = fire.
September 19th, 2008 | #
Crazy how many books I truly love are on this list – AND books I read before I was ten…and look how well-adjusted I turned out to be!
I love that Sinclair Lewis quote too.
(Can you tell me why the reporting on Mrs. Palin’s husband’s legal problems always seem to be buried on the page 11?)
September 20th, 2008 | #