Banded SciFi/Fantasy Books --> Linkage to Forbidden Fruit.
See any close personal friends in the list?
OB
Here in town some Christian groups were trying to keep the Harry Potter books out of school libraries, this was a number of years ago; back during their peak of popularity. And I can sympathize with parents not wanting young children to read the ‘Hunger Game’ books, it would be too brutal. Junior High and up should be fine… I am not sure what the YA market is truly considered I shall freely admit. As to the rest… Were these banned in Public Libraries? Or in school libraries? Surely no one was trying to keep these out of the hands adults?
The ALA doesn’t break up the frequently challenged books according to genre but there’s some interesting data out there…
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
The reasons given (found at the ALA website) for challenging or trying to ban The Hunger Games include: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence (2011) sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence (2010). Twilight reasons include: religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group. His Dark Materials (Golden Compass) reasons include: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence
And really, 2 Toni Morrison books in the top 10 in 2006? No wonder my students have never read her work…
Of the 47 listed, to date I’ve read 33. Among those 33, several were formative books when I was a teen and several more are the kind of read I revisit for the story and the personal connection.
I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I had been denied by exclusion these stories. The prospect is horrifying … to me.
I have 14 new books to read now 
OB
Thank you for the link Casilda. This is frightening… Another reason for people to save their books (real books) and avoid digital copies which can be revoked, or stored in ‘the cloud’ which can also be gotten to. A majority of the books I read as a young man were borrowed from friends, we passed them around amongst ourselves. And even in High School it was much the same, in our Science Fiction Club we borrowed each others books. And then later as we got older and got jobs we made treks to the used book stores downtown. And then of course when we earned real wages we joined the Science Fiction Book Club and ordered the juicy stuff. My parents would have freaked if they had known what was really in those ‘Dangerous Visions’ books… Or had seen the Heavy Metal magazines I snuck into my room… :eek:
Granted it’s been about fifteen years since I read ‘Lord of the Flies’ but I don’t remember there being any ‘lurid passages about sex’ in there, unless the language was fairly subtextual. (And I’ve been personally inclined to believe that ‘man is little more than an animal’ for most of my life, given my exposure to about 25 years worth of history classes and news broadcasts, as well as Heinlein’s arguments about morality from ‘Starship Troopers’.)
Also, LOL…burning ‘The Lord of the Rings’ for being ‘Satanic’? That’s just too ironic for me to take seriously, even if it’s true. I know that Tolkien went with paganism rather than monotheism for his mythos’ pantheon, but come on - the man was a devout Catholic, and LOTR is about as straightforward a story about an epic battle between good and evil as you can find. I guess elves and orcs are just too much for some folks to stand.
Here’s a related article to “Who Owns Our Digital Library?”.
Personally we have vast quantities of books throughout our home. Mostly my study, wife’s library/sewing room and various book cases throughout the bedrooms. It is reassuring to know that if the urge strikes I can find ( hopefully ) a long forgotten friendly book, sit in my big comfy chair and read to my hearts content. I do remember the practice of lending books to each other as a teen. So many friends would complain of the funk my hockey bag imbued some of the paperbacks I loaned them … but hey, they were free
Any librarians in the discussion, yes I am the guy who randomly buys a couple of my favorite paperbacks and secretly leaves them in public library as “gifts”.
OB
Geez, I’m in shock. I’ve read most of these. What’s up? Has all common sense disappeared?
Hitchhiker’s Guide? WTF? What’s wrong with that?
I am glad to see I was not the only one who had that ‘WTF moment’ when I saw that…
banned for a single word … in Canada?
I suppose given enough time and enough typewriters infinite monkeys can write C&D letters for anything
And Really? Is whore such a bad word?
OB
Horde your books.
“Keep them secret … keep them safe”.
Well, I started into my personal crusade of reading these works. Before visiting the new, I revisited my closest friend in their list “Flowers for Algernon”. It still makes me weep. A series of marks on a piece of paper can change our world. Next I’ll read something new from their list. Why? Because fuck them … that’s why.
OB
Beware the list makers.
DO NOT make me go all “Chasing Amy” on your butt FT.
OB
P.S. Jughead is not fuckin’ Mr. Weatherbee
P.P.S. 12 books to go … so far … so great
of the books I’ve plowed through so far “The Iron Dream” came as a surprise.
Not sure how I’ve missed this one all these years, but it was well worth the time.
Took a bit of scrounging to get a copy, for some reason it seemed pricey for a 70’s paperback.
/shrug
OB
Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but I grew up in a small town where if you had Dungeons & Dragons material in public the chief of police would try and confiscate it for being “OMG SATAN!” He even was at someone’s house and took/stole a copy of “Dragon Magazine” from a friend of a friend for the same reason.
All because if you didn’t read only “socially approved” things, you were evil. Even if nothing was officially “banned” just having the authority to bully people (and preach that Chick Tracts were real) did enough damage.
(also-Hunger Games is occult but His Dark Materials isn’t? WTF?)
It promotes towels. And towels lead to other things.
Sucking on the corners, sunbathing, that sort of thing?
