Celebrate Banned Books @ CCC Library!

First published in 1884, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is among the first novels in American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. The story is set along the Mississippi River in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Arkansas around 1840. It depicts the development of Huckleberry (Huck) Finn, a boy about thirteen years old. Huck has to find a way between his belief in the right thing to do and what most do believe to be wrong.
Reason: racism, offensive language

A picaresque novel written by French satirical polemicist and philosopher Voltaire, Candide blatantly attacks the ideology of philosopher Leibniz. Candide follows the series of unfortunate events encountered by the young, yet blindly optimistic protagonist. Shifting from one adventure to the next, Voltaire's signature piece does not cease to grip its audience with its humorous criticism of power, wealth, love, religion, philosophy and especially optimism. First published in 1759.
Reason: religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility

This slim volume penned by Marx and Engels in 1848 remains a relevant description of the tensions which continue to define the social classes. The Communist Manifesto goes forward to describe the Communist Party as envisioned by the Communist League, which commissioned the work. Boldly stating that the history of human civilization itself is the history of class struggle, this ambitious text presents an incisive cross-section of society and a manifesto for its transformation.
Reason: political content

The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair. Vulnerable and isolated, the family of Jurgis Rudkus struggles -- unsuccessfully -- to survive in an urban jungle.
Reason: Socialist views

Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) is a political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler. It was his only complete book and became the bible of National Socialism in the German Third Reich.
Reason: anti-Semitic, political extremism

Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler the Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on the previous whaling voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee.
Reason: a school district thought it “conflicted with their community values”

First published in 1895, America's greatest novel of the Civil War was written before 21-year-old Stephen Crane had "smelled even the powder of a sham battle." But this powerful psychological study of a young soldier's struggle with the horrors, both within and without, that war strikes the reader with its undeniable realism and with its masterful descriptions of the moment-by-moment riot of emotions felt by me under fire.
Reason: violence, "disgraceful" to soldiers

Hester Prynne must be punished. Why won't she name her baby's father? The vengeful Puritans of Boston demand an answer. Can the new doctor in town unlock the mystery of the shameful secret? Hester's gentle pastor seems unable - or unwilling - to give her any help.
Reason: "pornographic and obscene," conflicting with community values, and sympathetically portraying an adulterer

Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose - full of puns, parodies, and allusions, as well as its rich characterizations and broad humor, made the book a highly regarded novel in the Modernist pantheon.
Reason: obscene, "full of the filthiest blasphemies"