BANNED! Books week 2008

GWC Community GWC Book Club
#1

It’s that time of the year again to look at those books which some would call “immoral” or “evil” or “not for MY child (or yours!)”

This weeks banned list (from the ala.org lists these as “most banned” in 2007… (cut/paste from the link)

  1. “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
    Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

  2. The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

  3. “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
    Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

  4. “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
    Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

  5. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
    Reasons: Racism

  6. “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
    Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

  7. "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
    Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

  8. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
    Reasons: Sexually Explicit

  9. “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
    Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

  10. "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

(since it’s too late to nominate any of these for October’s book club, can I move that they be on November’s ballot even though many (all) are not SF books?)

#2

and here I was complaining about Snow White (isn’t that an epithet?) co-habiting with 7 dwarfs~! …sigh… or why the Big Bad Wolf wanted to …eat the Red Riding 'hood and her granmaw

#3

LOL I was totally going to post something about this here…

I love the irony of Fahrenheith 451 being challenged (it’s 72 or 74 on the 2000-2007 list).

And it’s great that Toni Morrison’s novels aren’t up on the top ten list this year (there were 2! 2! last year), though she’s the 4th most-often challenged author…

Seriously, just let people read. Reading is good.

There are people who want to ban The Giver. ???

#4

So many of my all-time favorite books are banned that some would paint me as a true degenerate. I am surprised to see that The Chocolate Wars is still so high on the list. Good lord!

Cute story about the #1 book: I had a doctor a few years back who gave me a copy! It’s the true story of two male penguins who pair off and keep trying to hatch rocks together until the zoo keeper gets them a real penguin egg to hatch as a family.

#5

And it gets labeled “Anti-Ethnic, Sexism”?! WTF?

#6

Thanks for reminding me to get out my shiny “I Read Banned Books” pin.

Here are some sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction books that made the Top 100 Banned Books of the previous decade:

#14 The Giver, Lois Lowry

#22 A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

#37 The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

#47 Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

#52 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

#56 James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (okay, maybe not sci-fi, but definitely fantasy, and it was one of my favorites growing up, so I couldn’t leave it out…)

#69 Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

…plus the Harry Potter series (#7) and a fair number of Stephen King titles. I’ve probably missed a few, but those are just the ones that I recognized as sci-fi/fantasy from the list.

And I have to ask: what reason could anybody have to ban “Where’s Waldo?” I mean, really, is the striped hat sexually suggestive on some level that I’m just not creative enough to recognize? Yeesh.

It’s so sad. Reading that list, I couldn’t help but think about how much enjoyment, learning, and growth I would’ve missed out on if I hadn’t been able to read the books on the ALA’s lists.

#7

OMG Craig Thompson’s Blankets was banned last year?! And from a public library, too, not a school library. Ugh. Here is the Amazon page, for those who haven’t heard of it before.

#8

There was a minor scandal in Baltimore when the Sun had a similar “lots of tiny people” drawing for the Preakness edition. Some of them were having sex and whatnot. (Which is par for the course in the infield, BTW.)

I’m wondering if there wasn’t something like that going on in a Waldo book.

#9

Who has the authority to ban books in the land of freedom of speech?

And “Huckleberry Finn”? What the frak? That’s a classic! Banning that one is like banning Shakespeare.

#10

Anyone else besides me see the movie The Chocolate War? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094869/
An awesome and unique movie.

#11

Parents who object to content in public school libraries and idiots all over America who object to content in public libraries that aren’t in schools. Oh, and Sarah Palin, who did try to ban Shakespeare. Doesn’t that just make Jersey look even more appealing?

#12

It’s complicated, naturally. The first amendment really only applies to the federal government (kinda. It’s really complicated.)

Short version is that censorship happens all the time in book selection and retention. It’s the motivation behind that which comes into question.

And “Huckleberry Finn”? What the frak? That’s a classic! Banning that one is like banning Shakespeare.

That one is relatively recent, and it’s mostly from ignorant blacks who object to the fact that the word “nigger” is used. Nevermind what the overall message is.

#13

Oh jeez. I just looked at that link. That is NOT a list of books that SP tried to ban. It’s a general “these are books that people have tried to ban” list.

Sarah asked the librarian about the procedure for banning books (and took retribution against the librarian who objected to the concept) but she never submitted a list of books to be banned.

I’m REALLY anti-Sarah, but I’m also REALLY pro-facts.

#14

Huck Finn has been challenged based on the use of language that would, today, be seen as racist in its context. That said, we read Huck Finn in my high school English class, and we discussed why people would want to ban it.

My brother actually had a “Banned Books” class as one of his high school English classes, which is pretty cool.

What I wonder about… banning The Grapes of Wrath? That was a book I hated in school (I found it to be prodigiously boring), but what’s so objectionable about it?

Then again, I’m the person who is all for people reading, period.

I wish people would just live and let live… it’s not like we’re forcing people who think that Adam and Eve played with the dinosaurs to read Stephen Hawking or Philip Pullman, or (dare I name it…) HARRY POTTER.

God forbid you have to read something and challenge your own views. Because it’s not like that does you any good, at all, to think about what you believe. /sarcasm.

#15

I have a name and location for who came up with that list. I am satisfied with his representations over its provenance and how others plagiarized him. The original list was part of a page built in Canada about books that have seen banning attempts in the past. That gentleman’s page was plagiarized and after some time wound up being posted by somebody working for the Obama campaign. A whole frakking podcast where I talked to somebody about the dreaded list can be listened to here: http://lisnews.org/listen_lisnews_org_podcast_episode_37. I encourage forum denizens to listen to it as they would get to hear duly-degreed librarians calling that supposed list utter crap. The other amusing thing to consider is that unless Sarah Palin had a TARDIS available to her she couldn’t have known so many years prior to publication what the Harry Potter books on the list were even going to be titled.

I hold a duly-accredited degree in library science so this is probably one of the few threads I can speak on with any authority. In the midst of Banned Books Week, it is necessary to remember that a challenge is different from something being banned. Under the exasperatingly broad definitions used by the American Library Association, Sarah Palin only ever challenged a book or inquired about how to. After searches of records kept by the American Library Association as well as the Alaska Library it was found that there was no record of any books being removed. A book’s removal after a challenge is what is a banning. There are guidelines on how to report these things and unless the librarian in Wasilla at the time was simply not doing her job there was nothing that happened to trigger the massive bureaucracy that watches these things.

As to the concerns posed by GalaxyRanger, typically you have banning requests come up due to parents wanting to not only impose restrictions on their children but also other children. I am against book banning. I am also against letting children roam free in the library. In their formative years, parents are supposed to play a role in helping their kids explore the world around them that a library provides a passport to. As long as there are unaccompanied minors in libraries, this is a matter that is hard to stamp out.

#16

I’d really like to see a location-based map of book bannings, but I’d be curious just to see what got banned where.

Sorry to any Southerners/heartlanders on the board, but I have a feeling quite a few books are banned in that general area.

#17

No need to apologize. I’m sure if we picked other topics we could find all sorts of issues with other parts of the country as well.

#18

You’d be surprised, I suspect. “Banned in Boston” was industry-speak for a while. (And in the industry, it was considered a good thing, as the attendant publicity drove sales elsewhere.)

#19

Yep, I did some research and found the apparently infamous topless sunbather. I guess they put a bikini top on her when they made a new edition of the book in the late '90s.

I didn’t know there was a movie of The Chocolate War. I really liked the book, so I’ll have to check that out.

(After looking at the IMDB page) And Adam Baldwin is in it? Now I really have to check it out.

#20

Yeah, I’m almost certain that I came across the original plague vector for that bit of misinformation early on and now wish I’d bookmarked it. (I question the “plagiarization” term, though. It’s an assembly of facts.)