Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.

ALA Reasons:

• Swearing:
• Damn: 5
• God: 19
• Genital Related: 8
• Sexuality
• Suicide
• Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

ALA Reasons:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 82
• Damn: 12
• Shit: 3
• Ass: 14
• Bitch: 25
• Bastard: 38
• FU: 1
• Genital Related: 50
• Nigger/Negro: 2
• God: 50
• Christ: 15

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression

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. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

ALA Reasons:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 47
• Damn: 34
• God: 26
• Christ: 30
• Bastard: 17
• Bitch: 13
• Negro/Nigger: 12
• Morbid and depressing themes
• Racial Slurs

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov

Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

ALA Reasons:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 12
• Ass: 1
• Damn: 4
• Bitch/Bastard: 4
• God: 33
• Christ: 2
• Genital Related: 18
• Themes of pedophilia and incest

1984 by George Orwell

Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.

ALA Reason:

• Damn: 3
• Hell: 1
• "Pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter."

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright. His fiercest antagonist is Jack, the redheaded leader of the pig hunters, who manages to lure away many of the boys to join his band of painted savages. The situation deteriorates as the trappings of civilization continue to fall away, until Ralph discovers that instead of being hunters, he and Piggy have become the hunted: "He forgot his words, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet." Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct, all on the brutal playing field of adolescent competition.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 3
• Ass: 7
• Damn: 1
• Racism
• Excessive Violence
• Discussions of Sex

Beloved by Tony Morrison

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Shit: 2
• Ass: 1
• Damn: 10
• Hell: 11
• Bitch: 6
• Nigger/Negro: 41
• Genital related: 20
• Racism
• Sexual Scenes

Ulysses by James Joyce

Ulysses takes place in a single day, 16 June 1904, also known as Bloomsday, it sets the characters and incidents of the Odyssey of Homer in modern Dublin and represents Odysseus (Ulysses), Penelope and Telemachus in the characters of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, and contrasts them with their lofty models. The book explores various areas of Dublin life, dwelling on its squalor and monotony. Nevertheless, the book is also an affectionately detailed study of the city. In Ulysses, Joyce employs stream of consciousness, parody, jokes, and virtually every other literary technique to present his characters. Many consider it the best novel of the twentieth century. It is powerfully written, a book for the ages.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Ass: 9
• Hell: 44
• Damn: 36
• Bitch: 10
• Bastard: 10
• Shit: 4
• FU: 2
• God: 147, though not all are used in the context of a swear word.
• Christ: 18
• Nigger/Negro: 7
• "dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable"

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 7
• Ass: 4
• Damn: 3
• Bitch: 3
• FU: 6
• Nigger/Negro: 8
• Shit: 7
• Sexual Scenes
• Smoking/Alcohol/Drugs
• Racism

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads-driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America.

The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom’s Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: “He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 125
• Ass: 16
• Damn: 43
• God: 108
• Christ: 49
• Negro/Nigger: 3
• Bastard: 16
• Bitch: 37
• "Vain and profane matter"
• Sexual References

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Damn: 3
• Bitch: 3 
• Bastard: 1
• Sexual Reference

Bone by Jeff Smith

After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert. One by one they find their way into a deep forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. It will be the longest - but funniest - year of their lives.

ALA Reason:

• Political viewpoint
• Violence
• Rasicm

Bless me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Exquisite prose and wondrous storytelling have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English. Indeed, Anaya's tales fairly shimmer with the haunting beauty and richness of his culture. The winner of the Pen Center West Award for Fiction for his unforgettable novel Alburquerque, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic bestseller, Bless Me, Ultima... Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past-a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world...and will nurture the birth of his soul.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing: We have been unable to search this book yet for specifics
• Occult/Satanism
• Religious Viewpoint
• Sexually Explicit Scenes

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .

ALA Reason:

• Swearing: 
• Ass: 16
• Shit: 38
• Damn: 15
• Bitch: 10
• Bastard: 7
• God: 60
• FU: 9
• Genital Related: 10
• Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking
• Sexually Explicit Scenes

The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

George and Harold have created the greatest superhero in the history of their elementary school--and now they're going to bring him to life! Meet Captain Underpants! His true identity is so secret, even HE doesn't know who he is!
Acclaimed author and Caldecott Honor illustrator Dav Pilkey provides young readers with the adventure of a lifetime in this outrageously funny, action-packed, easy-to-read chapter book. With hilarious pictures on every page, THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS is great for both beginning and chapter-book readers. And like Dav's other best-selling books of humor, it is sure to provide even the most reluctant readers with hours of fun.

ALA Reasons:

• Offensive Language: We found no swearing in this book
• Violence: We found cheesey comic-book violence similar to what you would find in SpongeBob

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a story about what it’s like to travel that strange course through the uncharted territory of high school. The world of first dates, family dramas, and new friends. Of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Shit: 1
• Hell: 4
• FU: 3
• Bastard: 1
• God: 13
• Genital Related: 5
• Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking
• Homosexuality
• Sexually Explicit Scenes

A Bad Boy can be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone

Josie, Nicolette, and Aviva all get mixed up with a senior boy–a cool, slick, sexy boy who can talk them into doing almost anything he wants. In a blur of high school hormones and personal doubt, each girl struggles with how much to give up and what ultimately to keep for herself. How do girls handle themselves? How much can a boy get away with? And in the end, who comes out on top? A bad boy may always be a bad boy. But this bad boy is about to meet three girls who won’t back down.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 3
• Ass: 2
• Shit: 1
• Damn: 4
• God: 7
• Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking
• Nudity
• Sexually Explicit Scenes

Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

This book is intended for mature audiences.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 37
• Ass: 10
• Shit: 77
• Bitch: 5
• Bastard: 10
• Damn: 24
• God: 12
• Christ: 5
• Genital Related: 45
• Nudity
• Sexually Explicit Scenes

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age–and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic that will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014







Stichley's Rating:
I decided to do this book after the death of Maya Angelou, though by time it posts in the order on the blog schedule it will have been roughly a month from her death.  I read this book when I was about 13 years old, and personally I was too young to have read it, but it profoundly touched my life.  This is a book that I don't even really know how to describe.  It's summary doesn't do it justice, but I know I could not. 
So what age group should be appropriate to read this book?  This is something I struggled with on determining for this blog. I don't believe it is a book that should be read by children.  "Although Caged Bird has generated a substantial body of criticism and found a solid place in the humanitarian curriculum, it is not a book that has been received without controversy."  This book has been one of the most frequent books targeted from exclusion from high school and junior high school libraries (page 5; Braxton,1999).  It is so for multiple reasons but primarily for the the fact that includes details about a rape that occurred to Maya as a child.  So for this reason I have given it a PG-13.  It is a singularly unique book that shows a side of this nation and people that so many of us will never experience or imagine, but at the same time it is to only be read by those who are ready to face the less and less obscure darker side of our world.

Instances of Swearing:

• Hell: 9
• Ass: 1
• Bitch: 4
• Shit: 3
• Damn: 6
• God: 38, but the most are in the appropriate context
• Christ: 3
• Negro/Nigger: 65 
• Sexual terms: 18

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live.

ALA Reason:

• Swearing:
• Hell: 4
• Ass: 17
• Shit: 9
• Bitch: 1
• Bastard: 4
• Genital Related: 5
• God: 14
• FU: 1
• Nigger/Negro: 1
• Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking
• Racism
• Sexually explicit scenes