Hey rebels! How many banned books have you read?

[April20]

I feel like such a slacker. I've only read six! ETA... I only looked thru the top ten for each year, not the entire list.

Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich- really enjoyed it.
To Kill a Lockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
My Sisters Keeper
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Julie of the Wolves

I need to get cracking. If only I could tear myself away from junk food mystery and thrillers.

 

[chemgirl]

Hmm, I've read only 16 from 2000-2009, and I'm reading a couple more this year (one because I'm teaching it and one because it'll be fun).


The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline Cooney
Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

Ok, this is another "Seriously?" book. I bought it from a Scholastic Books newsletter back in the 5th grade. I can't picture Scholastic Books featuring anything at all questionable.

Who bans these books anyway? How does banning work?

 

[dragonfly411]

I counted thirty for myself.

 

[Lula]

"Nickeled and Dimed" is a banned book? Holy cr*p -- that book should be required reading in this economy

 

[WinkHPD]

I quit counting at 20 and then saw that Harry Potter is one of the banned books and I read all of them with my children, so I must be going to a warm place when I die. Sigh.

Another that would have made the list when I was younger, had it been written then, is The Help. For those who may not have read it yet, it is an excellent look at the world as part of it was when I was young. I grew up in Idaho and never knew that kind of abuse up close, but it still pains me to think that we ever allowed those things to happen. Worse, that it was ever considered to be normal.

The marches, the riots, integration, Martin Luther King, all were part of my high school and college youth and quite mysterious to those of us who never experienced integration or segregation in our own lives. Many of the "banned" books revealed parts of many mysteries to us so that we could make decisions about things that we had never experienced, and with a little luck, never would for the most part.

Viva la banned books and those small enough to attempt to ban them. Those attempts bring many excellent books to our attention that we might otherwise have missed.

Wink

 

[rubybeth]

Who bans these books anyway? How does banning work?

Books make these lists because they are challenged or banned somewhere in the U.S. From the ALA's site:

"A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection."

At the library where I work, we have a formal system in place for handling challenges. A person making a challenge or asking for material to be moved (from the kid's section to the adult section, for example) or removed must fill out a form, one of the questions on which asks, "Have you read the item in question?" I'm surprised how many HAVE NOT READ THE ITEM THEY ARE WANTING BANNED. It usually stops at that point, since, if they haven't read it, how can they know it's inappropriate?

A while ago, we had someone going into our branch libraries telling our staff it was illegal to have books on euthanasia or assisted suicide in our collection because those activities are 'illegal.' Our staff were instructed to essentially ignore the complaint, since based on that logic, all murder mysteries, true crime novels, and even the Bible should be removed.

 

[somethingshiny]

I quit counting at 40. I've read a lot of them! And, what's more, I've read a few to my 5 yr old!

 

[vsc]

Steinbeck, Twain, Rowling, Maya Angelou (really?! ) Wow...such sensitivities some folk have, they should read some Marquis de Sade and really get their panties in a twist

ditto...

I read maybe 20 of them? haven't gone through all the lists.

I find it ironic that Farenheit 451 would be banned (being a book about books being censored)!

 

[Jennifer W]

Hmm, I've read only 16 from 2000-2009, and I'm reading a couple more this year (one because I'm teaching it and one because it'll be fun).


The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline Cooney
Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

Ok, this is another "Seriously?" book. I bought it from a Scholastic Books newsletter back in the 5th grade. I can't picture Scholastic Books featuring anything at all questionable.

Who bans these books anyway? How does banning work?

I'm reading Pillars of the Earth at the moment. I have no idea why it would be objectionable.

 

[Guilty Pleasure]

I would not want a book burned or banned from public access completely, but I can understand why some books should not be in elementary schools or middle schools and would therefore make this list. These books were not necessarily banned in the sense that all copies were forbidden or burned. They could have made the list because enough people found them to be age inappropriate. For example, I would not want a second grader reading Twilight.

I actually enjoy a lot of teen or young adult fiction (can't wait for Hunger Games!) and used to check out some books from the junior high library where I worked. The librarian had ordered a few new series based off reviews and recommendations, and I read them before she put them on the shelves. Based off chapter titles alone, I told her they were probably better suited to the high school library because I could just imagine what a sixth grader's mom would say if she saw the book. I didn't think the books should be "banned", just not promoted to sixth graders!

 

[merilenda]

Considering the amount I read, I really haven't read that many on the list. I should read more. There are some that I am just totally baffled about why anyone would want to ban them. I mean, I don't know why anyone would want to ban books in general, but you know.