Memoirs v. Massachusetts

The 1994 book Banned in the U.S.A., offers a list of the 50 books most often banned or challenged in the 1990s. In the number-one slot is Impressions by Jack Booth and others (1984-87), a series of language-arts textbooks for children from kindergarten through sixth grade. Used in 34 states, it has been the basis of numerous challenges from parents who hold that it teaches "witchcraft, mysticism, and fantasy [along with] themes of rebellion against parents and authority figures."

The remainder of the top-five list includes Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (1937), challenged mainly on the basis of the profanity contained in it; The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (1951); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1885), for its racial epithets; and The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier (1974), because it portrays school and church in a negative light.

A significant number of books on the list have won Newbery, National Book, Pulitzer, or even Nobel prizes: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, and One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.