Late last month I posted about how some schools are banning the book Harry Potter. Well I now have the full list of books banned which I’ve shared below. This list was created by the Ministry and the Foreign Schools Committee. The list below is for 2014-2015, if there are any spelling mistakes I’m sorry but I had to type the list below manually since I only received a print version not a digital one. In brackets I’ve also mentioned who was behind the ban and you’ll notice the schools have banned more books than the Ministry but that could be because they’re following the Ministry’s guidelines. One thing to note is that schools are recommended to follow this list and not obliged to follow it except for the books banned by the Ministry. Check out the full list below:
360 and More Fairy Tales (IAK)
A Foot in the Grave (IAK)
A Hologram for the King (ASK)
A Legend Novel – Prodigy (UAS)
A Magic Crystal (IAK)
A Thousand Splendid Suns [Audio Book] (Ministry)
A Time to Fight Back (IAK)
Alchemist (DUS)
Alex Rider Mission 1: Stormbreaker (Ministry)
Ali’s Pretty Little Lies (UAS)
Already Dead (Ministry)
Animal Farm (DUS)
Aristotle’s Dante (UAS)
BBC: Civilization the West and the Rest with Niall Ferguson [Video] (Ministry)
Bicycle Magic (DUS)
Blubber (DUS)
Bluemoon (UAS)
Break Point (FSIS)
Bridge to Terabithia (NES)
Call Waiting (FSIS)
Candide (Ministry)
Captain Underpants (DUS)
Captain Underpants and the Third Epic (DUS)
Carbonel (IAK)
Celebrations! Wesak (Ministry)
Champion (UAS)
Chanukah Lights Everywhere (BSK)
Charlottes Web (NES)
Charm and Strange (UAS)
Chester the Worldly Pig (BSK)
Chicken Soup Teenage Soul (DUS)
Chicken Sun (DUS)
Clockwork or All Wound Up (IAK)
Colinda: Cajun French Folk Song [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Coram Boy (Ministry)
Count Karlstein or the Ride of the Demon Hunstman (IAK)
Dad Does Belly Dancing (TEPS)
Danny the Champion of the World (IAK/HUBS/ACA)
Day of the Dead (BSK)
Defining Dulcie (Ministry)
Don’t You Know Teath’s A War On? (DUS)
Dreams Od Thee [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Dunces Anonymous (FSIS)
Emperor the Death of Kings (ASK)
Emperor the Field of Swords (ASK)
Feathers (DUS)
Finding Lubchenko (FSIS)
Five go to Billycock Hill (IAK)
Flesh and Blood (Ministry)
Forever (DUS)
Give Your Heart a Break [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Gowie Corby Plays Chicken (IAK)
Greater Tuna [Play] (Ministry)
Green Eggs and Ham (DUS)
Harry Potter (IAK)
Henry’s Map (ASK)
Heroes / i-ssassins (Ministry)
I Am Sikh (Ministry)
If You Can Give a Pig a Pancake (ICA)
Iggy Pigs Snowball Flight (DUS)
In The Darkness (UAS)
Insurgent (Ministry)
Jacob Have I Loved (UAS)
Job, Job [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Language of Photography: Introduction to Photography & Visual Literacy [DVD] (Ministry)
Last Sacrifice (ASK)
Latkes, Latkes Good to Eat (BSK)
Legend (UAS)
Life Times: Growing Up From Child to Adult (Ministry)
Little Bee (UAS)
Little Women (TEPS)
Lysistrata (Ministry)
Magic Steps (IAK)
Marie Curie and Her Daughters (ASK)
Mary-Kate and Ashley, Two of a Kind (IAK)
Meg Cabot (IAK)
Midwinter Blood (UAS)
Milk (IAK)
Millicent Min Girl Genius (DUS)
Millions (Ministry)
Minnie McClary Speaks Her Mind (ICA)
Mouse Magic (IAK)
Mr Granite is from Another Plant (Ministry)
Mummy (IAK)
My Family For the War (ASK)
Neferet’s Curse (UAS)
Nickelodeon: All Grown-Up [DVD] (Ministry)
Oh, Happy Day A Medley [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
On Bended Knee (Ministry)
One Last Thing Before I Go (ASK)
Paper Towns (ASK)
Peter Pan (DUS)
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (Ministry)
Piggie Pie! (BSK)
Playaway: Gary & Jim Pullan Roadtrip [Audio Book] (Ministry)
Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 (Ministry)
Quirky Tails (IAK)
Ramona and Her Father (HUBS)
Road Trip (BBS)
Ronald Dahl the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (IAK)
Sabrina the Teenage Witch (IAK)
Sammys Magic Garden (IAK)
Sandman vol 6 Fables & Reflections (ASK)
Seven Animal Stories for Children (Ministry)
Shadow Kiss (ASK)
Shattered Mirror (IAK)
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello [Play] (Ministry)
Space Station (UAS)
Spring-Heeled Jack (IAK)
Stargirl (DUS)
Stormbreaker (DUS)
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (Ministry)
Tamora Pierce: The Magic in the Weaving (IAK)
Tell Him [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Ten in a Bed (IAK)
The Baby Sitters Club (IAK)
The Best Friend (UAS)
The Biggest Valentine Ever (ASK)
The Bones of Fred McFee (BSK)
The Crucible [Video/Audio Book] (Ministry)
The Glass Castle (Ministry)
The Grand Mosque of Paris (Ministry)
The Islanders (UAS)
The Kingdom of Little Wounds (UAS)
The Last Battle (IAK)
The Last Vampire (IAK)
The Littles (IAK)
The Lord of Opium (UAS)
The Magic World (IAK)
The Mediator (IAK
The New Girl (DUS)
The North Pool (Ministry)
The One-Week-Job Project (Ministry)
Thinking Out Loud [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Total Eclipse of the Heart [Musical Notes] (Ministry)
Treasial Island (DUS)
Until We Meet Again (DUS)
Vampire Academy (ASK)
Walking For Fitness (IAK)
Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger (Ministry)
Winger (UAS)
Wonderful Story of Henry (KAS)
World of Faiths: Judaism (Ministry)
World of Faiths: Buddhism (Ministry)
World of Faiths: Hinduism (Ministry)
World War (IAK)
33 replies on “List of Banned Books and Audiovisuals in Kuwait”
If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think.
I checked the books banned by the Ministry. It make sense to ban those books from being taught in our schools because they clearly have a western view of our culture that does not necessarily reflect reality. The ban is not about “protecting morals” or being told what to say or think… but rather ensuring that educators in this country are providing the correct information from the perspective of this country.
I don’t see why this should be taken with sensitivity. We have our own heritage, our own culture and our own experts in them. We don’t need a westerner to teach us about our heritage. If that mean the Ministry will have to ban those books from being taught in schools then fine. If people want to read them they can get them.
And your explanation for banning these would be…?
World of Faiths: Judaism (Ministry)
World of Faiths: Buddhism (Ministry)
World of Faiths: Hinduism (Ministry)
Most Mythologies do not like any objective analysis of other Mythologies.
Everyone should be able to decide for themselves what they want to read. Banning books is limiting the right to free expression and therefore human rights. The fact your country is doing this, is very worrisome. Its 2023.
“Ramona and her Father”? REALLY? Talk about one of the most innocent children’s books ever. LOL.. I wonder if they even read some of these books before banning them.
I read stormbreaker from the English school fahaheel library, more than ten years ago…
Can’t imagine why it’s on a list like this
Musical notes of Total eclipse of the heart are banned.
And they wonder why we laugh at them.
Peter Pan? Little Women? I half expected Lord of the Flies to be on the list…but it’s not. I’m adding a lot of these titles to my shopping cart.
I think Lord of the Flies is the guidebook for KWI.
hahah that is hilarious. We are all the “little piggies”.. wow so much makes sense now
Something something internet, ebooks, unlimited library. Read anything. No one can stop me.
Lol, I was looking for books to read. I think I’ve got the next 2 years covered.
All Grown Up is banned? They played that show on Nickelodeon YEARS ago! and also, I’m surprised to see Sandman Vol. 6 on here and its the only graphic novel on the list.
After Ministry, its IAK which leads the list with 32 bans, followed by DUS & UAS with 19 each. BTW, which school is DUS?
Wanna know whats funny, I graduated in IAK sometime back and I still remember purchasing my first book from the book fare in grade 6, guess what was that book
yuppp harry portter & the philosophers stone….
funny they were behind the ban
Wait so harry potter isn’t actually ministry banned?
Knowlege is power
How can NES ban Charlotte’s web when we were required to read it in primary school! (I’m an ex-nes student)
According to my friend who sent me the list, sometimes schools ban books because of a parent complaint. So maybe a parent found something in the book offensive and complained to the school about it.
The main character is a pig?
IAK – top on the list of ‘banners’, and sister schools ) need to look at their ‘top management’ posts rather than banning books… Some of the qualifications there are more fictitious and colorful than Harry Potter could ever dream of being …😀
Little Women is banned? I wonder WHY? Maybe they think that the book promotes a lot of decency? Stupidity at it’s nerdiest points I guess!
And as for Alchemist, the only issue that they may have had with the book was that the Muslims were seen by the main character as “infidels”. And then the man who was drinking alcohol could be another reason it ended up on the ban list. Well, I will still recommend this book to others and my students, it is filled with wisdom and I myself read it at least twice every year. I don’t think most of these books should be translated in Arabic because that is where they sound all wrong.
This is actually a list of schools not to send your children to. I’m not surprised by DUS and IAK, but ASK, UAS and BSK? Shame on you all.
Why are most of the schools who banned these books American? Apart from BSK and NES who only banned a few books?
Why would 3 schools ban the below book , brief copied from wikipedia.
Danny is only four months old when his mother dies; and at the beginning of the story, he lives with his widowed father, William, in a Gypsy caravan, where William operates a filling station and garage. When Danny is nine years old, he discovers that William has habitually taken part in poaching pheasants from the estate of local magnate ‘Mr. Hazell’. One morning thereafter, at 2:10 A.M., Danny discovers William’s absence; and fearing some misfortune, Danny drives an Austin Seven to Hazell’s Wood, where he eventually finds his father in a pit-trap, disabled by a broken ankle, and brings him home. While William is recovering from his injury, he and Danny learn that Mr. Hazell’s annual pheasant-shooting party is approaching, which he hosts for dukes, lords, barons, baronets, wealthy businessmen, et al., and decide to humiliate him by capturing all the pheasants in the forest. To this end, Danny suggests that he and William should put the contents of sleeping pills prescribed by their surgeon Doc Spencer inside raisins which the pheasants will then eat; and William dubs this new method the “Sleeping Beauty”.
Having poached 120 pheasants from Hazell’s Wood, William and Danny hide them at the local vicar’s house, while they take a taxi home. The next day, Mrs. Clipstone, the vicar’s wife, delivers the sleeping pheasants in a specially-built oversized baby carriage; but the narcotic effect ceases, and many of the pheasants attempt to escape. Still drugged, they all perch around the filling station, just as Mr. Hazell himself arrives. With the help of Sgt. Enoch Samways, the local constable, William and Danny herd the groggy pheasants onto Mr. Hazell’s Rolls Royce; but when they have woken up completely, the birds escape, and Mr. Hazell drives off in disgrace. The book ends when Danny is hailed as “the champion of the world” by William, Doc Spencer, and Sgt. Samways, of whom most acquire two pheasants each of which has died of a drug overdose. William and Danny then walk towards town, intending to buy a new oven to cook their pheasants.
What everyone commenting above fails to appreciate is that the private schools actually have reading lists, and books to allow or ban as they see fit, rightly or wrongly.
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS HAVE NOTHING!!!!!!!
If you want people to read (or just buy) a book, ban it.
Give your heart a break by Demi is banned?
Guess I won’t ask my music teacher for the notes… 😀😊
Chicken Soup Teenage Soul, Little Women, Mary Kate and Ashley, The Babysitters Club? Hahahah. No Indian schools on the list that I can see. Thankful I went to one. ☺️
HI Mark, is there an updated list by chance? Cheers.