"The Most Frequently Banned Books in the 1990s"

This list is taken from the table of contents of Banned in the U.S.A. by Herbert N. Foerstel. It shows the fifty books that were most frequently challenged in schools and public libraries in the United States between 1990 and 1992. Banned in the U.S.A. has more information about the efforts to keep each title out of schools. (Here's the publisher's information on the book.)

The list is reprinted here with permission from the publisher. Most of the books in this list are still copyrighted, and not available online at this time. Those that are available have hyperlinks to the text. There may also be links to pages with more information about certain authors.

  1. Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.
  2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
  5. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  6. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  7. Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
  8. More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
  9. The Witches by Roald Dahl
  10. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
  11. Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
  12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
  13. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
  14. Blubber by Judy Blume
  15. Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
  16. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
  17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
  18. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
  19. Christine by Stephen King
  20. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  21. Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
  22. The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
  23. Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
  24. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
  25. Night Chills by Dean Koontz
  26. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  27. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  28. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  29. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  30. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  31. The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
  32. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
  33. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  34. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  35. Cujo by Stephen King
  36. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  37. The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
  38. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
  39. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
  40. Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
  41. I Have to Go by Robert Munsch
  42. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
  43. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
  45. My House by Nikki Giovanni
  46. Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
  47. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  48. Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
  49. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  50. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
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onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu (list provided by Greenwood Press)