Most Challenged Classics

As promised, here is the list of most challenged classics.

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway  

I am happy to report that three of the books are included on my daughters required reading list for Catholic High School this year, so I guess its safe to say that intellectual freedom is still alive and well, even in middle America.  Happy Reading!

Want to wear your outrage on your sleeve?  Buy banned book week merch at the ALA website.

Banned Books are Beautiful

Another official week is fast approaching....Banned Book Week!  If that doesn’t make you want to start reading, nothing will.

According to the ALA, the last week in September is reserved for “celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment”, which sounds a lot better than “reading books that your mother wishes you didn’t”.  

BBW is all about intellectual freedom and the right to read or express any idea, even if others hate it (see Terrible Tango post).  The week is sponsored by all sorts of groups and companies that love and sell books.  It is a week to be thankful for outspoken librarians, teachers, booksellers and passionate readers who stand up for controversial books - without their vigilance, many books would be off the shelf and in the dustbin.  

The top three reasons books are challenged, according to the Office of Intellectual Freedom at the ALA are because they are sexually explicit, contain offensive language and are considered inappropriate for specific age groups.  

But according to the Library Bill of Rights, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.”

In fact, if librarians do remove material for “protection or for any other reason” they are actually violating the First Amendment.

In 1953 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stated the issue clearly, “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”

So by now are you dieing to know the most challenged books in America?  

I am.  

Here is the list from 2010:

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson (see my blog post, Terrible Tango)
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

Happy reading and if you didn’t find anything to suit you in this list, stay tuned for the list of challenged classics coming tomorrow!

Terrible Tango

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
Mark Twain

Didn’t banning books go out of style with burning bras?  By now hasn’t everyone realized that information is essential to a free, thinking democratic society?  Why do people feel justified in taking away choices when it comes to books?  If you don’t like a book, DON’T READ IT, but keep your paws off my bedside table!  You never hear about people banning brussel sprouts or Slim Jims (eewww), they just don’t eat them.  People don’t ban ‘snuggy’s, socks with sandals or belly shirts, they just avoid them (hopefully).  But when it comes to book there is the danger of the ‘idea’.  Book banners believe that once an ‘idea’ is loose there is no going back - the idea tumbles down the hill, picking up speed, gathering everyone in sight as it flattens all alternatives and then it is too late.  That’s the mindset of people who challenge books like The Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, The Grapes of Wrath and Slaughterhouse Five and it is the same fearful thinking that has caused an uproar over a book that now holds the title of ‘most challenged’ book in the last five years.  
Can you guess the title?  It’s not Harry Potter or Twilight or The Hunger Games.   The book that has been at the center of censorship battles and, what Wikipedia calls a “cultural war”,  is a picture book about penguins called, And Tango Make Three.  I kid you not.  This is not any old picture book but a deeply subversive books that apparently strives to corrupt young readers with the truth.

The story began in NYC’s Central Park Zoo (all the action takes place in NYC, no wonder no one ever sleeps) when two male Chinstrap Penguins were observed trying to hatch a rock.  The zookeepers watching penguins Roy and Silo decided to give the pair a second egg from another penguin couple to see if they would have any luck and that’s when the real trouble started.  Baby Tango was hatched and raised by Roy and Silo who were kept together as a family by their keepers.  Read more about the couple’s history in Dinitia Smith’s NYT  article, Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name.    
Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell decided to write And Tango Makes Three to help children understand same-sex families in an age appropriate way.  But Focus on the Family Action and some elementary schools across the country saw a different agenda.  Here are the lowlights:

-Candi Cushman, from  Focus on the Family Action, said the book is far from a “true story.” “It’s very misleading,” she said, “and it’s a very disingenuous, inaccurate way to promote a political agenda to little kids.”

-In 2008, Shiloh Elementary School parents asked that the book be placed in a restricted section of the library that would require parental permission for check out.

-Superintendent of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools, Peter Gorman, ordered the book removed from the school library in 2006.

-They got a little crazy in Calvert County, MD when the Library Board of Trustees heard a challenge from a parent that requested the book be moved to an adult section on sexuality, or marked with a red dot to alert parents of it content.  The parent claimed that when the book stated that Roy and Silo “slept together” it was a reference to sexual behavior.

-Parent in Ankeny, Iowa asked that the book be moved to a restricted area only available to parents.

Although nutty parents offer great materials for articles, enough is enough.  In 2008 The Supreme Court sent a letter to Calvert County reminding them of the existence of  freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution (a small detail they overlooked).  The court reminded the library that they must offer unrestricted access of books to all patrons, even books about Penguins.

Roy and Silo’s relationship didn’t last forever, Silo’s eyes began to wander and they finally landed on Scrappy, a female penguin from Sea World, poor Roy was left in the lurch.  The anti-Tango groups took an ‘I told you so’ stance’ and rejoiced at the turn of events.  They were relieved to learn that even penguins could be bullied into ‘good decisions’.  In their narrow minded view the story of Tango could now be shelved with ancient history.

Personally, I can’t wait to get my copy.