sept 25 to oct 2 is banned books week!

To make up for all the books that get banned, limiting what people can read and learn about and damaging freedom of speech, this whole week, everyone should read as many banned books as they can get their hands on.

The ALA list of last year's banned books:
1. “TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle


Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs

2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Reasons: Homosexuality

3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide

4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee

Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult

Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence

8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier

Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

2008's Books:
1.And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell


Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group

2.His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman

Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence

3.TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle

Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

4.Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz

Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence

5.Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya

Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence

6.The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

7.Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar

Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

8.Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen

Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group

9.The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

10.Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper

Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group


2007s Books:
1.And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell


Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, sexism, and unsuited to Age Group

2.The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier

Reasons: offensive Language, sexually explicity, violence

3.Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes

Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit

4.The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

Reason: religious viewpoint

5.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

Reason: racism

6.The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit

7.TTYL, by Lauren Myracle

Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8.I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

Reason: sexually explicit

9.It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris

Reasons: sex education and sexually explicit

10.The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group


Which mostly proves to me that the people trying to ban books are a) unimaginitive and b) scrabbling for a new top ten each year because, get this, most books aren't offensive, and the ones they pick aren't that bad, either.

And the 100 most banned books for the 2000s:
1 Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
2 Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3 The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
4 And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
5 Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
7 Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8 His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
9 TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Myracle, Lauren
10 The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11 Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12 It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13 Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15 The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16 Forever, by Judy Blume
17 The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
18 Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19 Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20 King and King, by Linda de Haan
21 To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
22 Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
23 The Giver, by Lois Lowry
24 In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
25 Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
26 Beloved, by Toni Morrison
27 My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier
28 Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
29 The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
30 We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
31 What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
32 Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
33 Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
34 The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
35 Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
36 Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
37 It’s So Amazing, by Robie Harris
38 Arming America, by Michael Bellasiles
39 Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
40 Life is Funny, by E.R. Frank
41 Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
42 The Fighting Ground, by Avi
43 Blubber, by Judy Blume
44 Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
45 Crazy Lady, by Jane Leslie Conly
46 Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
47 The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, by George Beard
48 Rainbow Boys, by Alex Sanchez
49 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
50 The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
51 Daughters of Eve, by Lois Duncan
52 The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson
53 You Hear Me?, by Betsy Franco
54 The Facts Speak for Themselves, by Brock Cole
55 Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green
56 When Dad Killed Mom, by Julius Lester
57 Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
58 Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going
59 Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
60 Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
61 Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
62 The Stupids (series), by Harry Allard
63 The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney
64 Mick Harte Was Here, by Barbara Park
65 The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
66 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
67 A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
68 Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez
69 Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (IRONIC, THIS ONE)
70 Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
71 Junie B. Jones (series), by Barbara Park
72 Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
73 What’s Happening to My Body Book, by Lynda Madaras
74 The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
75 Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
76 A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
77 Crazy: A Novel, by Benjamin Lebert
78 The Joy of Gay Sex, by Dr. Charles Silverstein
79 The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss
80 A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
81 Black Boy, by Richard Wright
82 Deal With It!, by Esther Drill
83 Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
84 So Far From the Bamboo Grove, by Yoko Watkins
85 Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
86 Cut, by Patricia McCormick
87 Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
88 The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
89 Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
90 A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
91 Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Graighead George
92 The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
93 Bumps in the Night, by Harry Allard
94 Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
95 Shade’s Children, by Garth Nix
96 Grendel, by John Gardner
97 The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
98 I Saw Esau, by Iona Opte
99 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
100 America: A Novel, by Frank, E.R.

And several of these are about intollerance, restricting knowledge, racism, or about wht happens to the world when these things are allowed. Funny how that happens, isn't it?
 
Challenged Classics can be found here
The ALA website for Banned Book Week can be found here

booklust

When I'm at work and I should be doing stupid, annoying, but necessary work things, I can think of a half dozen books I want to read. When I'm at home and looking at the little search bar on Amazon, I can't think of any of them. How is that fair?

But I will say this: Since they gave me that ipad, I've been totally won over by the Kindle App. Most books are available there-- eight of the ten for class, and about the same percentage of all books I've looked up since then*. The reading experience is clean and clear and lovely. You can hilight and comment, just like in a real book, but with better handwriting. And there are things that aren't in real books-- lines that lots of people hilight come up underlined in the e-copy, and if there's a footnote (which there tends to be lots of in the sorts of books I read), it comes up as a link in the text, and if you click on it, it loads it into the text itself so you don't have to go searching through the book to find the right note!

And best of all, Kindle is a boy-once place. If something happens to your iPad, you can download it again later because you've already bought it. If you get it for the iPad, you can also get it for your desktop. Short of losing all their servers, it's about as safe as a digital book can be!

And now I'm eyeing all my actual books and thinking, I could replace all these with digiversions. I could clear that whole shelf... I mean, I'll keep all the really old books, the ones I inherited from Papa and the Modern Library collection. I'll keep the ones I really love and have filled with notes and the ones that I return to over and over. But I could easily replace a lot of them that I want to keep around but don't go back to as often, if they're available...


*No PC Hodgell on Kindle, which makes me sad. More people should read her books so they can stay in print and at the same publishers. They're awesome, and I really need to get the next one in the series. If I can find it.

link: 13 Books Nobody's Read But Say They Have (PHOTOS)

13 Books Nobody's Read But Say They Have (PHOTOS)

So, I've read five of the books no one's read, and two of them were actually very enjoyable.

These lists should be a way for me to gloat since I have a whole degree based on reading behind me, but more and more, I think it's just exposing how good I got at entirely avoiding certain kinds of the cannon classics! I managed to read a minimum of Falkner and Hemingway in those six years, and I'm still kind of proud of that because I don't particularly care for their stories, but I feel more and more like I really should have read them, if only so I could more effectively complain. And be contrary.