James and The Giant Peach by Roald Dahl was censored at Deep Creek Elementary School in Charlotte Harbor, Florida in 1991, at Morton Elementary school library in Brooksville, Florida, and in Stafford County schools in Virginia because it “contains the word “ass” …and contains crude language and encourages children to disobey their parents and other adults.”
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger was removed from the reading list of a writing class at Franklin, VA, High School (1987) after a a parent of one student was offended by some of the language in a story.
Source: Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001. From the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.
More recently, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was challenged but retained in the Olathe, KS ninth grade curriculum (2007) despite a parent calling the novel a “worthless, profanity-riddled book” which is “derogatory towards African Americans, women, and the developmentally disabled.”
Source: “Banned & Challenged Classics,” American Library Association, March 26, 2013. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics
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