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. |
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.
LMFAO
Oh god that made my day.
ok that is very very very funny im only 17 and these books are very good and the person who said that was and is very stupid! LMFAO!!!!!
Ha, well the twilight series, is possibly the most terrible series of books, i have read. Honestly, Edwawrd isnt real. he isnt going to love you, get a life! oh and vampires shouldnt sparkle. they kill people!
@Angelique: You’re only seveteen huh? Well I’m only fifteen and I can tell the difference between a good book and a bad book. Or should I say a good book and a series of four horrible books.
Im 18, you guys are retarded.
I’m in my mid-forties and I am incredibly happy to discover that someone who is 15 actually cares whether a book is good or bad! I tried to read the first volume of this series and was appalled at the saccharine levels: it could kill lab rats.
im only 14 and i havent even read the books and i intend not to the books sound so stupid and VAMPIRES DON”T SPARKLE!!!!!!! i love that they have banned the books me and my friends are!!!! to me, those books could put coffee to sleep and thats saying alot there!!!! they are just 4 stupid books and i know that people say ‘dont judge a book by its cover’ but how ccan you not!!!!!????
i hate twilight and i`m 12 and vamps don`t sparkle they rot dah
@shannon…Don’t be glad that people are trying to Ban the Twilight Saga…Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean they need to be banned so others who actually want to read them can’t…The Point of this is to keep this books out and available not hide them away so no one can read them!!!!!!!
To Kill a Mockingbird was a wonderful book. Definitely should not be banned. As for Twilight? I love the books and don’t see a reason as to why it should be banned.
All these over protective, bored, and close minded parents should censor their own children instead of ruining the possibility for active imaginiations in our youth.
the twilight series are good books. they should not be banned. even though the fourth book is slow to read, all of them are interesting and they keep you wanting to read them. THEY SHOULD NOT BE BANNED.!!!!!!!!
Are they serious I mean I have read many more detailed *** scenes in books by Lynsay Sands or Lori Handeland than the “***” scenes in Breaking Dawn. If you would even call it that in Breaking Dawn I mean come on these people are obviously stupid and have nothing better to do than this “think of the children” ****. It’s a book! If your children are stupid enough to act on it, it is your fault because then that means you raised them to not know the difference between Right and Wrong.
Honestly, no book should be banned because of foul language or sexually content in a high school. Nor should the use of drugs in a book. A book is a book and ya, a lot of high school kids are going to run into these things. In the 80’s it was ***, drugs and rock n’ roll. Cut out the rock n’ roll and add Rap/Hip-Hop, you got todays world. So what is the big deal about having those kind of books in a high school. Come off of it, Twilight, The Golden Compass… Seriously WTF? I am 15 and probably have more of an open mind then half of the adults out there who think they know what the real world is. Grow up, because our future is going to be sh*t after a few more generations; and book banning is one of the reasons why.
Blair, very well said. I got caught up in the Twilight craze for about 5 minutes until I regained my sanity. Although the basic idea is there, the books were horribly written and degraded women at a horrible level.
To Kill A Mockingbird, however, is one of the greatest pieces of American Literature. Not only do I think that it should never be banned, but I think that all students should be required to read it.
I’m 16 years old, by the way.
Ok this is sad there are tons of books from great authors threw oout time and your all crying over twilight a group of books that don’t even hold a candel to half the books on the list and will never gain the history that they have pure proof of the tragedy of cencership the path of rewriting history
You are stupid people. The boooks are banned for sexual refrences and what not. People banned Harry Potter because they thought it would make kids actually believe in magic. Books will make the banned list for just about anything
Why does it matter *why* a particular book is banned? Are there good reasons for banning a book? I think not. If you don’t want to read a particular book, then don’t read it. If you have children and you don’t trust the job you’ve done raising them, then by all means bubble-wrap their brains and don’t let them read anything that might inspire an independent thought. If you think you’ve done a good job as a parent, then trust your kids to make the right decisions about what to read.
Honestly, the books they want to ban! I happen to love Phillip Pullman’s “Golden Compass” series, and have read it time and again. Sure, its a bit confusing, but its still a good book. Twilight, too… A lot of the “banned” books don’t deserve it!
So in my area the twilight series started a reading frenzie, every student in local high schools were reading that book. and it sparked their intrest in reading. i figure that yeah it isn’t classic lit. but if it can get a kid who has never opened a book to read four good sized books and want to continue to read then where is the issue.
by the way quit trying to out do eachother because fighting over the internet is like winning the special olimpics even if you win your still retarded.
and i also read other books on that list and i think that if parents worry about there children reacting to these books don’t let them read it. if they say there children have access to these books in school home school them. WE live in a “free” country and should be able to read books.
( One last thing.. some books are just meant to be fun and pleasent reads don’t worry so much about it and just enjoy it. )
Twilight? Well in my personal opinion I think its a series for more mature readers, like
High schoolers. Not that ALL high schoolers are mature enough still, but i think its good that they moved the series from middle to high school.
The books are really not that bad at all, the movies? well thats a whole other subject … they are HORRIBLE!!
And to a previous poster who said that the books were horrible because vampires were supposed to be assasins.. well they ARE fantasy books meaning that anything is possible in these books and thats the whole point. Thats why we read them, to escape from reality.
*- from a 17 year old that has read the Twilight series.
okay, i really don’t think that any book should be banned. Really if you some research on the book you will kinda know what is going to be in it and then you will know to read it or not.
know for books that have *** in them, some teens go and find books that have all that and like me i reall don’t enjoy that so i don’t read but that does’t mean that it should be banned jush because it has the word ***. some parents and adults should really start getting life because if they bannd books then we will want to go out and read them. really they are just making people read them more. they should really think about that.
Twilight-why? yeah the 4TH Book has *** in it. it not that detailed get over it. my 12 year old sister wants to read the books i said okay but wait until high school for the last one(she not going to read any of the books to lazy to read)so whats the point if they are going to read it any way.
i am a avid reader and read books that have *** in them and i was not going to die for it, so way banned it?
***coming from a 16 yrs old
thats realy stupid
I don’t think people who give competent reviews on the ‘Twilight’ books should be hormonally driven angsty girls. (IE: Teenage girls…the target audience.) They think anything involving sparkling and shiny boys they’ll never have as a good read.
To Kill a Mockingbird should not be banned. It shows part of Americas history- although it is not true, it is similar to the story of The Scottsboro Boys (Tom Robinson case in the book)
If To Kill a Mockingbird was not written with the dialog that was used in the time period it would be literary flaw.
I have my opinions about a few of these books, but I won’t waste my time telling you about it.
I believe that a banned book list is unnessecary by all means. Schools and parents should be responsible enough to not to have books they deem inappropriate in their library in the first place. Parents should also know how to say no to their kids, and to identify books that are innappropriate. I mean, it’s kind of obvious a 10 year old shouldn’t read a book with “***” in the title.
Yeah, you’ll be sorry on judgement day. Really, you’re saying, lets all read these books and go to hell! You should read the Bible and look at the evidence that God exists and think again.
I really think you need to broaden your perspective a little. Regardless of your religious beliefs, reading and understanding various other forms of literature will do you no harm. They may even do you some good!