Author Topic: Banned Books Week  (Read 2069 times)

Marge_Innavera

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Banned Books Week
« on: September 28, 2010, 11:04:56 am »
"Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. Click here ( http://bannedbooksweek.org/Mapofbookcensorship.html ) to see a map of book bans and challenges in the US from 2007 to 2009. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and they protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore contemporary issues and controversies to classic and beloved works of American literature.

According to the American Library Association, out of 460 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2009.

ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, drugs,
   and unsuited to age group

    And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
    Reasons: homosexuality

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually
explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: racism, offensive language, unsuited to age group
 
Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: sexaully explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: sexism, homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group, drugs, suicide, violence
     
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn  Mackler
 Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

see more at http://bannedbooksweek.org/info.html

Marge_Innavera

  • Guest
Re: Banned Books Week
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2010, 11:07:39 am »
Some classics that have been banned:

1984 - George Orwell
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
American Tragedy - Dreiser
Arabian Nights
Awakening - Kate Chopin
Bible
Brave New World - Huxley
Call of the Wild - J.L.
Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye - J.D.S.
Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak
Fahrenheit 451
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Leaves of Grass - Whitman
Lord of the Flies
Madame Bovary
Moll Flanders - Defoe
Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne
To Kill a Mockingbird
Ulysses - James Joyce