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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was censored from its first publication, although it has not provoked as much controversy as Twain's later novel, the adventures of huckleberry Finn. In 1876, Brooklyn (New York) Public Library banned the book from the children's room; that same year, Denver (Colorado) Public Library removed it from the library shelves. Five decades later, in 1930, guards at the USSR border confiscated the novel, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The novel proceeded to earn a reputation as an American literary classic and remained unchallenged until 1985, when education officials in London removed the novel from all school libraries after determining that the book was "racist" and "sexist." In 1990, the novel was challenged, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as being racist in the Plano (Texas) Independent School District. In the O'Fallon (Illinois) schools in 1992, parents challenged the inclusion of the book on the required reading list and charged that the use of the word nigger was degrading and offensive to black students. They won the right to request that an alternative reading choice be offered. In 1994, parents of seventh-grade students in the West Chester (Pennsylvania) schools claimed that the book contained an abundance of racially charged language, and it was removed from the curriculum.

Bibliography:

1) Burress, Lee. Battle of the Books: Literary Censorship in the Public Schools, 1950-1985. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1989.

2) Geller, Evelyn. Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 1876-1939: A Study in Cultural Change. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984.

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