A.L. Kaplan's Blog: A. L. Kaplan

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: Of Mice and Men

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck

Another story I read in HS.

They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

Of Mice and Men, creates an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual’s existence meaningful.

Of Mice and Men is banned and challenged in schools and libraries due to its racial slurs (particularly the N-word), profanity, vulgarity, and depiction of violence and sexual situations. Some people also object to the novel’s negative themes, its portrayal of marginalized groups like women and the disabled, and an alleged anti-business or anti-American message from the Depression era.   

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: Brave New World

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Hard to believe, but this was another HS read. I really appreciate my school more now than ever before.

Aldous Huxley’s profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. 

Banned and challenged because of sexual content and promiscuity, anti-religious/atheistic beliefs, anti-family, drug use, profanity, and suicide

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: Lord of the Flies

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

I read this one is HS and it was an eyeopener into human nature. We had some great discussions in class.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies is perhaps our most memorable novel about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”

Lord of the Flies is banned and challenged primarily due to its violent and brutal themes, including the depiction of murder and the descent into savagery, as well as its offensive language and “defamatory” comments toward women, minorities, and God, according to critics and school administrators. Some also object to the book’s disturbing portrayal of human nature, seeing it as a negative or racist message about society and civilization. 

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: The Hunger Games

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

My daughter suggested I read this one and I loved it. It does have a lot of violence in it, but so do most dystopian stories. It’s a great opening for discussion with your readers. The movie, however, was even more intense and I wouldn’t recommend that for young people.

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The Hunger Games has been banned and challenged for its violent and graphic content, including themes of child violence and rebellion against authority. Other reasons cited for challenges include perceived “anti-family” and “anti-ethic” messages, offensive language, and references to sexuality or occult themes. However, many critics argue that these challenges stem from a misunderstanding of the book’s true themes, which highlight societal issues and encourage readers to question oppressive governments.  

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: Water for Elephants

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.

Water for Elephants has been challenged or banned in schools and libraries due to its depictions of violence, animal cruelty, and sexual content

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: To Kill A Mockingbird

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee

This was another book that I read in HS. I’m beginning to wonder what they are using now. I really enjoyed this one.

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable coming-of-age tale in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage iniquities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father — a crusading local lawyer — risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

To Kill a Mockingbird is challenged and banned from schools and libraries due to its use of racial slurs and profanity, its portrayal of racism, and themes of rape and violence. While some see the book as a valuable tool for teaching about history and morality, others find the explicit language and sensitive subject matter too harmful or offensive for young readers.  

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read: The Handmaid’s Tale

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood

Here is another very relevant book. I didn’t read this one until earlier this year.  Margaret Atwood is a visionary.

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive.

Banned and challenged for profanity and for “vulgarity and sexual overtones”

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read 10-8-25

Exercise Your Rights:

Read Banned Books

Animal Farm

George Orwell

George Orwell has the distinction of having two great books on this list. And yes, I read this one in HS.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned-a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published fifty years ago, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece has meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

Animal Farm has been banned or challenged globally for various reasons, including its critique of communist regimes in places like the Soviet Union and Cuba, and its perceived promotion of mass revolt and communist politics in the U.S. during the Cold War. In some Islamic countries, like the United Arab Emirates, it was banned for containing imagery, such as pigs and alcohol, that conflicts with Islamic values.  

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read 10/7/25

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books

1984

George Orwell

Another HS classic read. 2+2 does not =5

This one really stuck with me and feels even more relevant today.

A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching. Thought Police, Big Brother, Orwellian – these words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. The story of one man’s Nightmare Odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality.

1984 has been challenged or banned for its social and political themes, including explicit depictions of totalitarianism, government surveillance, and rebellion, as well as for its sexual and violent content. Some critics also objected to its perceived pro-communist or anti-communist ideology, even though Orwell intended it as a critique of any authoritarian regime.  

Banned And Challenged Books I’ve Read 10/6/25

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

I remember reading this on in H.S. and thought it would be a good book to start with.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

This book was banned and challenged because of sexual content, profanity, violence, alcohol/smoking/drug usage, blasphemy/religious viewpoints, suicide, and abortion.