Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's Banned Books Week in America

The United States of America is the land of the free, right? It's free speech and freedom of expression, both rights enshrined in key documents that were cornerstones of creating the modern democracy that is America. Well, not everybody seems jazzed by those notions - and the American Library Association has the proof. For the past quarter of a century it has staged Banned Books Week, publicising attempts to have books banned from public libraries.

In anticipation of this inauspicious silver anniversary, the ALA has compiled a list of the top 10 most challenged books from 2000-2005. Challenges are defined as formal, written complaints filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The ALA reports there were more than 3,000 attempts to remove books from schools and public libraries between 2000 and 2005. So, without further ago, below are listed the 10 most challenged books of the 21st Century (2000-2005) in America - how many of them have you read, sinners?

1. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
4. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
6. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
7. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
8. Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz
9. Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
10. Forever by Judy Blume

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm up for banning Harry Potter, just for being bloody ubiquitous. Argh!!!!

But Maya Angelou????? That says it all, it really does.

And Captain Underpants??? I love those books. Sod philosophy, that's my bedtime reading.

But FOREVER...The guy in it calls his penis Ralph. That's classic. They would really deny us that??
Fascists!

Anonymous said...

Dave Pilkey, the author of "Captain Underpants" should be slapped with a wet noodle for the bad message he is sending to children which is that you can do poorly in school and still be a great success like himself.