As you know from reading blogs around the blogosphere the week of September 24th to October 1st is Banned Book Week in the US. If you want to know more please check out ALA to find out more about it.
The Canadian Banned Book Week will be February 26th to March 3rd 2012. I plan on taking part in this one too.
As you can see it doesn’t matter where you live because no matter how much we have freedom of speech there seems to be people out there who think that its okay to have books banned.
To clear up challenged and banned books:
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.
Here is the top 10 challenged books for 2010
- And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence - Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit - Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit - The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence - Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group - What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group - Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint - Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality and sexually explicit - Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence
I believe in the freedom to read and not have someone tell me what I can and can’t read. So during this very important week I am going to attempt to read a challenged/banned book.
I am still pondering which one I want to read. Do I want to go with a 2010 one or something earlier?
I have to admit when I was looking at all the challenged books I realized that I have quite a few of those books and I plan to make it a point to read more of them.
So I think this week one I am going to attempt to read is:
TTYL (along with the other books in the series, TTFN, L8R, etc.) by Lauren Myracle was the 3rd most challenged book of 2008 for the following reasons:
offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
I have had this in my TBR pile for quite some time so I think this is the perfect book to read. I will be reading this and posting my review and thoughts on this book sometime this week. Perhaps if time permits I will attempt to read another book.
Happy reading everyone
Don’t forget to make it a point to read a banned or challenged book this week.
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Nickel and Dimed is a banned book????!!!! You’ve got to be kidding me. Wow. Just … wow.
Did I read the wrong Hunger Games? I am pretty sure there was nothing in there that was remotely sexual! Violent, sure, but it had a point…that point being we send our babies off to war…if they can watch it on the tv, they can read about it in satire! And poor Tango! My mom just bought my three year old a copy as she thinks every kid should have one. people need other hobbies than going after good books…
‘Brave New World’? Banned? Hard to believe. In Australia there has also been talk of banning Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ in schools. Takes me back to when Enid Blyton’s ‘Noddy’ was banned because of a perceived homosexual relationship with Big Ears!
Keep up the good work trying to keep censorship sane.
The TTYL books are great!
The Hunger Games are dark, yes, but not unsuited to the age group.
Book banning makes absolutely NO sense to me. I’m glad there are always people to stand up against it. =)
I didn’t know that Canada has a separate banned books week. I’ll need to participate in that one too!
It was great sitting next to you.