8 Books That Were Banned For Insane Reasons

Now I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking you've got this one all sussed out, that the reason for the ban is obvious. Little girl or elderly woman gets brutally eaten by snarling wolf – it's violence, right? Well, the book has likely been challenged on those fronts before, but that's not the reason it's on this list.

No, the reason for Little Red Riding Hood's ban makes much less sense. In the Brothers Grimm version of the story (the story has been repeatedly and subsequently sweetened up for many adaptations) one of the things that Little Red Riding Hood is bringing her grandmother in her basket is a bottle of wine.

At the end of the story, Little Red gives her grandmother the wine after the wolf is defeated, which helps her Grandmother feel a bit better after she's been poorly (sinister, right?). An assistant superintendent from Culver City, California was quoted as saying the use of wine in the story “gives the younger ones the wrong impression about alcohol”, therefore leading to its ban. The takeaway lesson, then: brutal violence is fine, a glass of wine after a victory not so much.