OK. It's occurred to me that nearly all of my favorite books have been banned or challenged. Plus, I know a few librarians & library students, so I know how important it is to keep an eye out for when good literature is banned.

My mom never screened my reading, and was always very anti-censorship, I'm kinda proud of that.

So, in that spirit, here's some lists from the American Library Association:

100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1999-2000:
>http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top100bannedbooks.html

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The following books were the most frequently challenged in 2001:

Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, for its focus on wizardry and magic.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, for using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (the "Most Challenged" fiction book of 1998), for using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, for sexual content, racism, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group.

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene for racism, offensive language and being sexually explicit.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for offensive language and being unsuited to age group.

Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, for being sexually explicit, using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous for being sexually explicit, for offensive language and drug use.

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, for offensive language and being unsuited to age group.

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause for being sexually explicit and unsuited to age group.
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The most frequently challenged authors in 2001 were J. K. Rowling, Robert Cormier, John Steinbeck, Judy Blume, Maya Angelou, Robie Harris, Gary Paulsen, J. D. Salinger, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and Walter Dean Myers.

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The most frequently challenged authors in 2000 were J.K. Rowling, Robert Cormier, Lois Duncan, Piers Anthony, Walter Dean Myers, Phylis Reynolds Naylor, John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, Christopher Pike, Caroline Cooney, Alvin Schwartz, Lois Lowry, Harry Allard, Paul Zindel, and Judy Blume.
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How many of these have *you* read? :)


Books, not banning! ladyjane


***Edited to say:

OK, OK, I realize Maddonna's "Sex" (which made the 2001 list) does NOT qualify as quality literature! :)

hee, hee....

I was an avid reader as a child (so was my dad) and I'll never forget the bookmark he bought for me in the fourth grade- "I heart banned books".

i took the handmaids tale by margaret atwood out of the school library in 7th grade, and there are a few words of latin in the book, so i asked the librarian to help me find out what they meant, and SHE TOOK IT AWAY FROM ME. so, i told my mom, and she went out and bought it for me. (it never occured to us to challenge the librarian, i guess...) but, i still have that well worn copy, 14 years later, it's one of my fave books, ever, and i heart my mom for letting me read whatever i damn well pleased for the last 27 years, because she is a big time reader, too....\

rachel:)

No one bothered me about what I could and could not read, though I think if people had taken a closer look at what I was reading, they may have stopped me, since I stumbled across Brave New World and some Kurt Vonnegut when I was 11-12.

As much as I'm against censorship, there are situation where I feel like parents should ask their kids to wait a couple of years before reading something. When I was in 7th grade, we got full run of the library, but there was no one to say, "Hey, mystril, you might like this book..." so I basically worked my way through a bunch of second-rate and outdated YA fiction, then started in on the adult books with only vague ideas about what books were "good." On the other hand, I think it's a parents responsibility to look at what a kid reads and not the library's job. (Like I support parents telling their kids that they can't read the Harry Potter books, but not telling the libraries that they can't stock it or the schools that they can't teach it.)
-mystril

Umm.... On what grounds do people ask "Where's Waldo?" to be banned? Is there something so offensive about a tall skinny guy with glasses?

I've read quite a few books on that list (including "Where's Waldo?"!) and have enjoyed them very much. Thankfully my mom was an English major and always encouraged me to read good books. She gave me Steinbeck's "The Red Pony" when I was 9 or 10 and I haven't stopped since. I'm also glad that my school district was pretty liberal and actually _assigned_ books like "Slaughter-House V" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings".

I respect that up to a certain age, parents want to monitor what their children read. But that doesn't mean that they have to monitor what the whole community reads. Just because their kid isn't ready to read something, doesn't mean that all kids that age aren't ready. And trying to censor a child's reading material after junior high probably isn't going to work. If it does, it's just going to give them a narrower understanding of the world.

... but around here, I suppose I'm preaching to the choir. ;o)

Ack! Censorship (and copyright infringement) at it's most annoying.
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/education/02REGE.html

You have to register to read the article, but to sum up, the NY Regents examiners have edited exam texts to remove anything that might offend the test takers. For example, removing references to God in Elie Wiesel's work, to Judaism in Singer's work, and the words, "She's gay!" from an essay in Annie Lamott's _Bird by Bird_. This is all without requesting permission from any of the authors.
-mystril

Danielepea -- honest to god, I think some people thought Where's Waldo was gay, and so objected to him.

I frankly don't think Waldo has much of a sex life, but whatever his preference is is OK by me... :)

I love librarians. Or at least the ones in my hometown, who never once challenged anything, and fought like wildcats to protect the people's right to have access to books in the libraries

Mystril, it sounds like your librarians didn't really help you find out what you'd like to read (as opposed to what adults think kids SHOULD read, or what they think is inappropriate). I think it's one part of the librarians job to help a kid find what they like to read, and encourage them. I mean seventh grade is pretty much YA fiction (which is generally ages 11-12 up). Some may be more appropriate for younger YAs, but I'm of the school that if you want to read a book, read it. You might not get it if you're too young, and it might be disturbing, but that should spark discussion with either a parent, teacher, librarian or friend--basically, educating via reading.

My parents encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, and if I didn't understand something I'd ask them, or I'd ask Joy (the librarian). I read a mix of YA and adult from about 5th grade on, and while at first I don't think I understood evertyhing, it sure as hell didn't hurt me to read it.

I think because my parents were (and are) extremely active members of the Friends of the Library, and I was good friends with our librarians, and in a fairly liberal area of NJ, I never really experienced a book being challenged. Our library was heavily involved in the banned book week awareness thing.

Only once in high school did our crazy french teacher try to tell us that such and such a book was inapprpriate for our delicate 16 year old sensibilites because it discussed--horrors!--sex and sexual matters in it (I think it was THEN AGAIN MAYBE I WON'T by Judy Blume). No one took her seriously, espeically since we had french right after sex ed, where we'd just learned how to put a condom on a banana.


Jen

Our town library is veryvery bad. The children's section is okay, but the YA, genre fiction, and adult section were miniscule, while the reference section was outdated.

The librarians basically just told loud kids not to make as much noise and rolled their eyes at you if you asked them for help. If I was lucky (and could convince them that I needed the books), they would let me look at the books they locked away because they were afraid that kids would cut the pictures out. If I had been a more outgoing child though, I could have asked for more help from the library aides, but for a brief time, I spent 2-3 hours at the library every day after school and usually just tried to keep grown-ups from noticing me. And that sort of thing becomes habit forming after a while.
-mystril

Scary Stories? What the...? Those were soooo popular when I was in grade school. It actually had a waiting list. We used to read them to each other on the bus. I don't care what kind of violence and gore might have been in there, it had us READING while developing SOCIAL SKILLS instead of BEATING EACH OTHER UP.

Bridge to Terabithia I forgot about until now. It was one of those books that are so good you finish the last page and immediately flip back to the front to read it again. People die in it, but duh, it teaches kids how to deal with death. I think if I read it now it would still make me cry. It was an excellent.

I'm glad to see my HS lit teachers had us read most of the books on that list. I don't doubt the fact they're banned had something to do with it. I went to one hell of a forward-thinking Catholic school.

that list of challenged books scares me, but the people who would challenge those books scare me more. a teacher at my school taught harry potter and had parents screaming at her in the hall, and a substitute teacher in my class one day told kids that they were going to go to hell for reading harry potter, that everything in the books was real (except harry himself) and you had to be very careful and do research before you read a book so that you don't go to hell for reading it. (i thought the kids were joking because they didn't like this sub, but some of the goody-goodys backed them up) the kids i teach are not exactly well behaved, so they challenged her by asking how she knew it was bad if she hadn't read it (good question!) and her only response was that her minister told her. great. and did he happen to read it?!?! later in the year she confiscated a copy of one of the later books (the kid was reading instead of doing what she wanted him to do) and told him that if he didn't find her by the end of the day to get it back she was going to burn it beacuse she didn't want "that kind of filth" in her house.

what kills me is that kids in poor schools are getting less exposure to arts and things that foster creativity every year. and while parents don't censor music or movies, they are more than happy to crush imaginations by taking away books.

the joys of teaching in the south...

Yeah, what was always mind-blowing to liberal li'l old me was the reasons *why* these books are banned/challenged.

Wizard of Oz -- Good Witch?! You can't have a Good Witch! That's Satanism! (???)

How Babies Are Made -- Disgusting, you're discussing Sex with children! (Uh, and telling kids they come from the Cabbage Patch, or fell off the turnip truck is any better???)

One of my favorite YA books of all time, Tuck Everlasting, is challenged/banned because the Tuck family (from the 1800's) drank from a magical spring that gave them eternal life, and they stay forever young. Evidently the whole subject of this fountain of youth, and the frank discussion of death freaks people out...I don't get it. :(

Good Libraries are soooo important! Whenever I asked a question, and my mom didn't know, we ended up going to the Library to "look it up!" :) It was a big fun outing for us!

For example: "Why yes, ladyjane, snakes do have eyelids! It says so right here in the Encyclopedia Britannica! And now we know! Cool."

I've decided if I ever have money to donate, I'm gonna give some to our public library back home...they're hurting, compared to when I was a kid.

My favorite banned book: Native Son, Richard Wright.

*sigh* My apartment needs more bookshelves!

I grew up kind of sheltered from the horrors of consorship in good old Catonsville, Maryland. I've been into buying books from a young age and so haven't dealt with the public library/school system very much over this.
I was htinking the other day about how fearless kids are these days. Kind of frighteningly, detrimental to their survival-ey kind of way. I don't wanna sound old and cranky but you know. Sex and drugs and violence. To some extent I know that's the media nd to some extent I know that no one really comes into a sense of their own mortality until the mid tweties but I can't help wanting to blame some of it on the fact that there aren't any more bugaboos in kids lit any more. All the really nasty stuff gets censored out in favor of books about sharing and self esteem. Not that I'm against sharig and self esteem, mind you.
What? Oh yeah. My perrenial favorites are Catch 22 and Dangerous Liasons (or Les Liasons Dangereuse, depending on the issue).

I loved Robert Cormier's books when I was younger. Fade is simply a marvelous plotline, and After the First Death should be required reading in middle schools in this post 9/11 world, when we want to blame Arabs for everything.

His books made me feel smart. It wasn't Sweet Valley where no one wants to go beyond "petting." He discussed peer pressure, fear of death, terrorism, sexual assualt.

I have to add The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I cry everytime I read it. The banning of this book is exactly why so many girls and boys are sexually abused and never tell- because no one ever talks about it!

Also, the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. That man was amazing.I used to have a tape of him reading his works, and I just loved it.

And of course, Huckleberry Finn. :)

I read anything I wanted when I was about 12, and the only thing that bothered my mom was the explicit sex in Stephen King's IT, and when I got nightmares from what I read.

But you know what really gets me? Banning books like Harry Potter and Shel Silverstein, then taking your kids to see violent R- rated movies, or letting your 3 year old watch Scarface and tell people it's his favorite movie. Which sticks with a kid longer- a written description of something awfull that is later discussed, or a 10 year old boy watching a guy get stabbed in the neck with a pen in Casino for NO FUCKING REASON?

hmm.

I was always allowed to read whatever I wanted as a child. This banned book list makes me sad. It seems that the banners don't want people to think.

(and why would anyone ban Anastasia Krupnik?)

Anastasia Krupnik! Isn't that the one where she gets an "F" on a poem because the teacher is a dumbass and thinks poems should rhyme, so Anastasia's daddy takes a pen and changes the "F" to "Fabulous!"

Oh, that book made me cryyy! Huh? Why would anybody ban that book??? That book kept me *alive* during the darkest hours of middle school, lemme tell ya!

*grumble grumble banning Anastasia Krupnik my ass!*

Oh, wait...doesn't she talk about being an athiest in her diary at one point? I bet *that's* it...

God, why do I even remember this stuff? ladyjane

***Edited to say:

I'm looking at the book description at Amazon.com...I *seriously* think the (dumbass) reason why this book gets banned is that her mom is preggers and she "hates" the idea of having a baby brother. (?!??!)

God, some parents are so frickin wacky!

But, I agree it's important to screen a kid's reading for age-appropriate stuff these days...I looked at a sample chapter of "blood & chocolate" and it made my hair stand on end.

wow, this thread has made me remember a whole bunch of really wonderful books, especially "bridge to tarabithia" and "tuck everlasting," both of which i read in school, along with many, many of the other books on the list.

every time a subject like this comes up, i am so thankful for my wonderful parents.

i don't think anyone else has mentioned "a wrinke in time" yet. when i was young, i LIVED on madeline l'engle's books! the character of meg was such an inspiration for me, as i think she probably was for all smart, awkward girls! what, does the idea of fighting against governmental mind control somehow bother certain people?

* oh, and while "american psycho" certainly should not be banned, i believe that we should be allowed to throw hardcover editions of it at bret easton ellis's head whenever we please. *

I adored A Wrinkle in Time. My fourth grade teacher read it to us every afternoon and we all liked it so much that we brought in copies of the rest of the trilogy to read. I don't think any parents complained. But then, we wouldn't have heard about that.
*
When I'm a mom, I'm going to make sure my kids read an assortment of books that were challenged. But then, I think that would happen purely by accident. Though I suspect I'm going to be doing a lot of censoring of their television viewing or at force them to be selective about what they watch.

My children will think I'm a conspiracy crackpot because I will say, "Remember, kids, there are people out there who don't want your mind exposed to new ideas. They want you to believe them without questioning their motives." many many times, or at least until they learn to tell me that I'm keeping their mind closed because I won't let them watch bad tv.
-mystril

I agree Alex! I graduated from the same college he did, and believe me, all of his writing sounds like the same whiny, bitchy crap all the other ridiculously coked up rich kids who went to Bennington (before him and after) write about. Same subjects, same style, only the eras are different. None of it is original, and it just plain sucks. How did *he* get famous doing this? I'm going to aim Less Than Zero right at his eyeball. :P

"My children will think I'm a conspiracy crackpot because I will say, 'Remember, kids, there are people out there who don't want your mind exposed to new ideas. They want you to believe them without questioning their motives.' " -- mystryl.

Nope, no they won't, Mystryl! :) My mom said pretty much the same thing to us growing up, and look at how OK I turned out...Hey, I said "look at how OK I turned out!"

*crickets chirp, chirp, chirp*

Heyyy! I'm not that bad, am I?!? (j/k)

But, seriously, mystryl, that's so cool, and I can assure you that if you tell your kids to read and question authority, they will see you for the great mom you'll be! :)

"Challenged" Books I know I've read:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

Books I'm fairly certain I've read:
Native Son by Richard Wright
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
Blubber by Judy Blume
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts

But man, that list makes me want to go out and read more challenged/banned books. What's so wrong with Judy Blume again?!
jt

Judy Blume: She talks about sex. And periods. And inappropriate erections. And makes fun of sex ed teachers and the poor advice boys get and stuff like that. Oh, and she uses naughty language every once in a while.

-mystril

In other words, Judy Blume gets in trouble for telling about pre-teen and teenaged life the way it actually *is*! Gawd forbid!

Yes, Judy Blume has a website (not the most elegantly designed thing, but hey.)
>http://www.judyblume.com/

And here's a nifty article on the site, where Judy Blume talks about her experiences with censorship:
>http://www.judyblume.com/censors.html

I'm not sure if someone replied to the Where's Waldo question or not. I don't remember seeing it...

In the beach scene there is a microscopic picture (you know how tiny those pictures are!) of a woman with her string bikini top being untied and a surprised expression on her face. It is a very simple picture. I'm not an advocate of people who go around undoing unwilling participants clothing, but if it is that big of a deal to some people I think something could be figured out.

I definitely am for libraries having everything available to children as long as the parents approve. Maybe there could be, dare I say, a permission slip or something similar required for certain books. Of course you have those conservative bible thumping parents out there that have to make everything so complicated, but I think it's worth working out a system.

Thank Gawd my parents didn't refer to this or I never would have known about the Facts of Life! "Where did I come from?" is banned/challenged! That's outrageous! It's a picture book! Is it because it states that sex can be a lot of fun, but goes on to state that it's like jumping rope... lots of fun, but you can't do it all day? hee hee hee.

I'm surprised by some of the books there.