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Wednesday, September 28, 2005

How many have you read?

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PZ Myers • 79 Comments (last page)

Majikthise has started a "Most-challenged books meme"—look at the American Library Association's most challenged books list, and rattle off the ones you've already read.

  1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
  2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
  3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
  8. Forever by Judy Blume
  9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
  12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
  16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
  17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
  18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  19. Sex by Madonna
  20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
  21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
  24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
  25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
  26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
  27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
  28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
  29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
  30. The Goats by Brock Cole
  31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
  32. Blubber by Judy Blume
  33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
  34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
  35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
  36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
  37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
  39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
  41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
  45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
  46. Deenie by Judy Blume
  47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
  49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
  50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
  51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
  52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
  54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
  55. Cujo by Stephen King
  56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
  58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
  59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
  60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
  62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
  64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
  65. Fade by Robert Cormier
  66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
  67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
  68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
  69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  71. Native Son by Richard Wright
  72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
  73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
  74. Jack by A.M. Homes
  75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
  76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
  77. Carrie by Stephen King
  78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
  79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
  80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
  81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
  82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
  83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
  84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
  87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
  88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
  89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
  90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
  91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
  92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
  93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
  94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
  95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
  96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
  97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
  98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
  100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

My score is 47, but I think I've got an edge in having three kids, and getting exposed to a lot of the juvenile literature by that route. Those books are something of a mixed bag: the Goosebumps books, for instance, are formulaic dreck, while To Kill a Mockingbird ought to be required reading.


Trackback url: http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/3014/xkkjbGj7/
Comments:
#42006: coturnix — 09/28  at  10:33 AM
My score is only 9!!!!! But I'm sure a bunch of Soviet-era stuff I have read, if common (or even translated into English) in the USA , would surely be banned (or challenge, or whatever is the criterium to be listed).


#42011: — 09/28  at  10:57 AM
My score is only 6, mostly read in school. I read primarily military history, history, science, Rumpole and for fluff, mysteries.


#42012: — 09/28  at  11:00 AM
28.

And yeah, who would possibly bother to protest the 'Goosebumps' books? That's about on par with getting worked up about subpar popsicle sticks.


#42013: — 09/28  at  11:00 AM
I can't *believe* that Tom Sawyer is in that list! What is there to object to? Spelunking? Fence-painting? Sheesh!
Ditto for A Wrinkle In Time, although I only read it a couple of times as a kid, not the obsessive 12-15 times that I read TS, so it's harder to recall the details so many years later.

Or is it because Sam Clemens was a known subversive, so everthing he wrote is suspect?

Pardon me while I print off the list as a "books worth a look"


#42019: Kagehi — 09/28  at  11:19 AM
I am only sure of 6. Though technically some are series, as the list indicates. Earth's Children is probably the only one on the list I wasn't forced to read in school. Though, by 'forced', I mean forced to put down what ever book I was already reading, so I could be exposed to *literature*. lol

I can't *believe* that Tom Sawyer is in that list!


For the same reason Little Black Samba is, which btw you can't find with that title anymore, because it included an escaped slave or some BS like that I think. These are not sane people who go after these things, just ones with a high opinion of their own stupidity.

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent - Robert A. Heinlein



#42020: Michael Sprague — 09/28  at  11:22 AM
What the hell is wrong with "Where's Waldo?"


#42021: — 09/28  at  11:26 AM
Pardon me while I print off the list as a "books worth a look"<>

Not sure I'd take this as your roadmap - after all, <i>Private Parts is on there.

It is curious that both the Harry Potter books and A Wrinkle In Time are on the list -- seems opposing parties would object to each.

Re: To Kill A Mockingbird - I pick that book up every few years and reread it, and I'm always amazed at what a wonderful read it is. I believe there are a lot of writers who you read for the stories they tell (Michael Crichton is my guilty pleasure there - no flames, please!), or for the way they write (Vonnegut, Barbara Kingsolver), but there are very few writers who manage both. John Irving does it occasionally; Harper Lee certainly did it.

Aside #1: 14?!? Is that all I could manage?!?
Aside #2: Where's Waldo? WTF?!?


#42022: — 09/28  at  11:26 AM
What the hell is wrong with "Where's Waldo?"

The idea that Waldo cannot be easily found can cause children to lose faith in God, who should know where everyone is.


#42023: — 09/28  at  11:27 AM
[grumbles about stupid closing tags]


#42024: Orac — 09/28  at  11:30 AM
Sadly, just eyeballing it, my score can't be more than 20 or 25/100 at the most.

I really need to do better.

Oddly enough, several of these books were required reading for me at the Catholic high school I went to, including #3, #5, #6, #44, #52, #71, and #84.

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com



#42025: Stacy — 09/28  at  11:36 AM
My score is 20, and at least half of those are books I was assigned to read in school, in Arkansas.


#42026: — 09/28  at  11:38 AM
"A Wrinkle in Time" (great book, my daughter around ages 9 - 11 read many of L'Engle's books and loved them) being on that list is just plain batshit crzay. The author was a devout Christian and the worldview expressed in her books was as obviously Christian as C.S. Lewis's (though no doubt the same people want to ban Narnia). What do these psychos want, for kids' reading to be resricted to the Bible (about which they understand less than nothing) and Jack Chick comics?


#42027: — 09/28  at  11:42 AM
Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz

That's number one? Holy shit. Those books rocked. The stories were typical ghost story stuff, but the illustrations... oh, God, the illustrations. A whole generation of young readers grew up scarred. Damn you, Stephen Gammell.

What the hell is wrong with "Where's Waldo?"

One of the scenes (I think it's the second) is a beach scene. In the background, which is full of all kinds of people doing all kinds of things intended to distract you from finding Waldo, there's one little section where a bunch of kids are sticking an ice cream cone onto the back of a woman who was sunbathing on her stomach with her bikini top undone, and she's sitting up in surprise with her breast exposed. Shocking stuff for first graders, I tell you.


My personal score is 11. Surprisingly -- to me, at least -- despite being a Stephen King fan, I haven't read any of the three King books that were on the list.


's avatar #42029: PZ Myers — 09/28  at  11:51 AM
That sunbathing woman convinces me I need to go back and review all of the scenes. Where's the boobies?

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris



#42030: — 09/28  at  11:55 AM
16, of which 7 were required/suggested at school (variously in the UK, US and Canada).

Sharing the general WTF??? at seeing Where's Waldo on there. Ditto James and the Giant Peach.


#42031: — 09/28  at  11:56 AM
I score 12.

It is curious that both the Harry Potter books and A Wrinkle In Time are on the list -- seems opposing parties would object to each.

No, it's probably the same anal-retentive hyper-fundies who also object to C.S.Lewis. Madeleine L'Engle (like Lewis) mixes in too much magical-type stuff, and her Christian theme is applied with too light a touch, with insufficiently suffocating orthodoxy, for these folks' taste. To them, L'Engle and Lewis are little better (maybe even worse) than Rowling -- I mean, at least Rowling doesn't pretend to be writing Christian kid-fic.

(I ran across the most amazing website a few months back, explaining exactly why Lewis was a Tool Of Satan. No, I can't recall the URL, sorry).

As for some of the others: I recall people objecting to _Huck Finn_ and _Mockingbird_ on the grounds of racism -- apparently missing the fact that the racist sentiments are expressed by the books' villains.


Trackback: Good question: How many have you read? Tracked on: To Be Determined (128.210.10.145) at 2005 09 28 11:57:32
I’m changing this meme a little bit from its origins and also from Pharyngula, where I found it. I’ll list EVERY book on this list, because I think it’s worth seeing how ridiculous the neo-thought...


#42032: — 09/28  at  12:03 PM
If I recall correctly, there's several images in "Where's Waldo" of beach-goers in skimpy clothing (as might be expected on a beach)...and a few, very _tame_ visual jokes regarding the same. I _think_ that's what the fuss was about.

Score: 29


#42034: — 09/28  at  12:09 PM
The good news is I think about 20 of the top 50 have been on the summer reading list for my kid's schools.
Bad news is I went to #31 before I had one I had read and PZ hadn't.
But what's with Flowers for Algernon?


's avatar #42035: DouglasG — 09/28  at  12:17 PM
What is with "Flowers for Algernon"? I find this list very interesting. Nigger Jim is the character in Huck Finn that is responsible for the banning as he is called that. Perhaps the Injun Joe character has gotten some notice too. You can't have a good Satan Worshipper, so magic users like Harry Potter have to go...

I would like to ask PZ, you READ "Sex" by Madonna? Or, did you just look at the pictures... That would determine whether I'm a 6 or a 7 wink

Douglas E. Gogerty
-----
“No, I’m from Iowa. I just work in outer space.”
-James T. Kirk



#42036: — 09/28  at  12:19 PM
But what's with Flowers for Algernon?
Science making smart mice and trying to cure diseases In Violation of God's Clear Will.

Haven't read most of 'em - except Twain, Salinger, l'Engle. If you REALLY want to be subversive, give the kids Andre Norton and The Admiral (Heinlein.) Witch World, Last Planet, Glory Road, Beyond This Horizon. Or maybe H. Beam Piper - Kalvan of Otherwhen hehehe

fusilier
James 2:24


#42037: — 09/28  at  12:26 PM
As a 9-year-old, the "Scary Stories" books gave me nightmares. As Patrick noted, the stories themselves were totally mundane and I had already heard most of them even by that age--but the artwork was positively ghastly, especially the way some of them can "surprise" you as you turn the pages. The smiling fat frog-woman ghost creature thing from volume 3 (was it "The Lady In White"?) so unnerved me as a child that I refused to ever read the story again and wouldn't even have the book in my bedroom anymore. Nearly 20 years later some of them still give me chills.


#42038: — 09/28  at  12:29 PM
I would guess L'Engel is there because of the "Whiches."


's avatar #42039: Aaron M — 09/28  at  12:31 PM
18 here, with 5 being required reading from high school: Algernon, Mockingbird, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, and Huck Finn. Not bad, I think, for southeast Missouri.


's avatar #42042: Nullifidian — 09/28  at  12:40 PM
23, primarily because I shied away from reading what was considered "children's books" even as a child. I preferred adventure stories of Jack London, Sir Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. and spy novels by Ian Fleming and John le Carré.

I had a truly idiotic second grade teacher who kept on taking the books away from me because they weren't "age appropriate." One would think a teacher would be delighted to have a student who reads Billy Budd, Foretopman, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Ivanhoe in second grade, but apparently not with this one.

"We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.” Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire



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