Banned Books List: 2008 to 2009
The American Library Association is celebrating banned books week (September 26–October 3, 2009) with a long list of books banned in the last year: BOOKS CHALLENGED & BANNED IN 2008-2009: Speak.Read.Know. The purpose of this awareness campaign is to “celebrate the freedom to choose and the freedom to express one’s opinion, even if that opinion might be considered unpopular or unorthodox. The campaign stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those viewpoints to all who wish to read them.”
The list includes some amusing entries, which I’ll link to below. Included are both great American classics and innocuous modern hits.
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The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Restricted minors’ access in the Topeka and Shawnee County, Kans. Public Library (2009) because a group contended that the material is “harmful to minors under state law.” |
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The New Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Challenged at the Nampa, Idaho Public Library (2005) along with seven other books because “they are very pornographic in nature and they have very explicit and detailed illustrations and photographs which we feel don’t belong in a library.” The library board approved policy changes that restrict children’s access to any holdings that may fall under the state’s harmful to minors statute and barred the library from buying movies rated NC-17 or X. |
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The Day After Tomorrow by Robert A Heinlein
Removed from the Beardstown, Ill. High School library (2008). A parent requested its removal and a committee determined the novel “rather very adult in nature” and, because the library already had a large selection of other valuable science fiction and spy literature, the committee elected to remove the book from the high school’s circulation and donated it to the public library. |
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Retained in the Coeur D’Alene, Idaho School District (2008) despite objections that the book has too many references to sex and drug use. |
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Retained in the English curriculum by the Cherry Hill, N.J. Board of Education (2007). A resident had objected to the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated by members of a racist white community in an Alabama town during the Depression. The resident feared the book would upset black children reading it. |
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The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Retained by the publicly funded Dufferin-Peel Catholic School District in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (2008) with a sticker on the inside cover telling readers “representations of the church in this novel are purely fictional and are not reflective of the real Roman Catholic Church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” |
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Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer
Removed from and later reinstated in the middle school libraries of the Capistrano, Calif. Unified School District (2008). The books were initially ordered removed by the district’s instructional materials specialist, who ordered that the books be moved from middle school to high school collections. That order was rescinded and the books remain in the middle school libraries. Challenged at the Brockbank Junior High in Magna, Utah (2009), by a parent over sexual content in the Mormon author’s fourth novel, Breaking Dawn. |
I’m looking forward to see what foolish conservatives, religious nuts, and other assorted groups of close-minded individuals try to ban next year. As usual, the rule on banned books is “if you don’t want to read it, no one is forcing you to check it out!”
| This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 6:57 pm and is tagged with brave new world by aldous huxley, american library association, coeur d alene idaho, robert a heinlein, alex comfort, high school library, shawnee county, aldous huxley, to kill a mockingbird, joy of sex, year books, new joy, harper lee, d alene idaho, american classics, coeur d alene, nampa idaho, library board, list of books, awareness campaign. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
3 Responses to “Banned Books List: 2008 to 2009”
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thats totally lame!! twilight. seriously??
TWILIGHT IS BANNED!!!!!!!!
Twilight should be banned for having poor character development, a slow story and multiple spelling errors in a world raised with spell-check. But not for any other reason.