Question of the Day!

The six “banned” books that I’ve read that I can think of off the top of my head are:

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Odyssey by Homer

I encountered Alexis’s book first in the film version “Smoke Signals,” which prompted me to find and read his book. In 2018, a number of sexual assault allegations were made against Alexie, which he would apologize for. This would prompt a number of Native and First Nations organizations, as well as the American Library Association, to rescind honors given Alexie and in some cases have his books removed from their collections.

Bug Jack Barron was denounced in the British House of Commons and banned from sale in a British chain of book stores.

Satrapi and Rushdie’s works are banned in Iran. In Rushdie’s case, there was a multimillion dollar bounty placed on his head.

Twain’s novel, which humorously portrayed Huckleberry Finn fighting against a societally accepted norm (slavery), was at one point removed from school libraries because of the portrayal and dialogue of Jim the escaoed slave.

Finally, Homer’s Odyssey has been the target for removal from American school reading curriculum in the last decade.








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