15 Author Responses To Their Books Being Banned
![15 Author Responses To Their Books Being Banned](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/8/772248_320x180.jpg)
For people who are scared of the power of a few words, standing up against a person who professionally uses words is a bold choice. That’s like being scared of boxing or professional fighters and then challenging them to a fight. So, here are 15 different authors' responses to their books being challenged, mostly by parents worried about exposing their children to sensitive subjects.
But many of the books are ultimately advocating for good things, like, ironically enough, not banning books. Do we really need to point out the utter lunacy of banning Fahrenheit 451? Or, maybe the book had some bad words, maybe some slurs or expletives of the sort we generally agree kids shouldn’t be saying. But is reading it in a book really suddenly going to make them go around telling people to eff off and to suck a fat one? Well, some people seem to think so. So of course authors have had to, in various combinations of eloquence, snark, wit, loftiness, and humor, rebuff the accusations and news of the bans. Beware: some of these are verbose. C'mon, they're writers.
![Madeleine L'Engle MOST BANNED BOOK A WRINKLE IN TIME L'Engle told the New York Times, It seems people are willing to damn the book without reading it. Nonsense about witchcraft and fantasy. First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, 'Ah the hell with it.' It's great](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/5/772245.jpg)
Source: The New York Times
![Mark Twain MOST BANNED BOOK ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN After being informed of a librarian's decision to remove his books from the Brooklyn Public Library, Twain wrote, If there is an unexpurgated Bible in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/2/6/772226.jpg)
Source: The Atlantic
![Justin Richardson MOST BANNED BOOK AND TANGO MAKES THREE and tango makes three y Justin Richardson Peler Pamel Richardson said, We wrote the book to help parents teach children about same-sex parent families. It's no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/6/772246.jpg)
Source: Telegraph
![Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki THIS ONE SUMMER A statement from the authors reads, A book doesn't stop existing by taking it off the shelf. Nor do the ideas contained within. Pulling a book from a library shelf makes it inaccessible to kids who depend on the library for](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/7/772247.jpg)
Source: Intellectual Freedom Blog
![Philip Pullman MOST BANNED BOOK THE GOLDEN COMPASS ORICD CRACKED co Pullman felt glee over the challenge of his books, Firstly, I had obviously annoyed a lot of censorious people, and secondly, any ban would provoke interested readers to move from the library, where they couldn't get hold of my novel,](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/4/772244.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![John Green MOST BANNED BOOK LOOKING FOR ALASKA 700 LOOKING for ALASKA TOLNI CRACKEDC CNEr John Green said in a vlog, If you have a world view that can be undone with a novel, let me submit that the problem is not with the novel.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/4/3/772243.jpg)
Source: Vlogbrothers
![Toni Morrison MOST BANNED BOOK BELOVED Morrison writes, The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poems whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists' questions challenging authority never being posed,](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/2/2/772222.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![Lois Lowry MOST BANNED BOOK THE GIVER CRACKED CON Lowry wrote on her website, Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. It's okay for a parent to say, 'I don't want my child to read this book.' But it](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/2/1/772221.jpg)
Source: Lois Lowry's FAQ
![Judy Blume MOST BANNED BOOK ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET Food CRACKED.cO Blume, on the response to her books after Reagan's election, My feeling in the beginning was wait, this is America: we don't have censorship, we have, you know, freedom to read, freedom to write, freedom of](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/2/0/772220.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![Alice Walker MOST BANNED BOOK THE COLoR PURPLE Walker had empathy for her critics but said, Some read the first five pages and decided they were doing society a service by silencing the voice of a 14-year-old uneducated black girl whose only language was what she'd heard in her](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/2/3/772223.jpg)
Source: Guernica
![Alison Bechdel MOST BANNED BOOK FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC Bechdel, when asked how she feels about her book being banned, My first reaction is: What a great honor! My second reaction is, it's a very interesting situation, and it's all about the power of images, which I think](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/9/772219.jpg)
Source: The Comic Journal
![Kurt Vonnegut MOST BANNED BOOK SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE CRACKED COM On the coarse language in his books, Vonnegut said, And we all know, too, that those words really don't damage children much. They didn't damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/5/2/772152.jpg)
Source: Carnegie Mellon Library
![Harper Lee MOST BANNED BOOK TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism, Lee wrote in a letter regarding Hanover County School Board's objection to her book. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/4/8/772148.jpg)
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
![Ray Bradbury MOST BANNED BOOK FAHRENHEIT 451 If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own, said Bradbury. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/4/4/772144.jpg)
Source: Chicago Tribune
![Maya Angelou MOST BANNED BOOK I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS Angelou has said, I'm always sorry that people ban my books. Many times, I've been called the most banned. Many times my books are banned by people who never read two sentences.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/4/3/772143.jpg)
Source: The Indianapolis Recorder