Banned Book Week 2010
For those out of the loop, Banned Book Week is at the end of September. It was never made a big deal during school--not that I can remember, at least. But I think I went to those dang "radical" schools where the parents complained about nothing. Because censorship interests me, I looked up the banned/challenged book lists for the year I graduated high school and the list for this year (technically May 2009-May 2010) and bolded all the books I've read:
Banned/Challenged Books of 2006 (May 2005-May 2006)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou*
When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Forever by Judy Blume
Doing It by Melvin Burgess
The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Homo by Judy Carter
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky*
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
The Teenage Girl's Survival Guide by Jeremy Daldry
The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey
Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a gURL by Esther Drill*
Born Too Short: The Confessions of an Eight-Grade Basket Case bu Dan Elish
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Geography Club by Brent Hartinger*
GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens by Kelly Huegel
The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual by Mavis Jukes
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Alice on the Outside by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Choke: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Leaving Disneyland by Alexander Parsons
Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
The Buffalo Tree by Adam Rapp
Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds
And Tango Makes Three by Justin and Peter Parnell Richardson*
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl by Charleen Touchette
Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba
This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
*also appears on the 2010 list
Banned/Challenged Books of 2010 (May 2009-May 2010)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
Buster's Sugartime by Marc Tolon Brown
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Sex for Busy People: The Art of the Quickie for Lovers on the Go by Emily Dubberley
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Aura by Carlos Fuentes
The Dead Man in Indian Creek by Mary Downing Hahn
Lesbian Kama Sutra by Kat Harding
Hills Like White Elephants: A Short Story: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
Survivor Type: A Short Story from Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen
Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles
The Crack Cocaine Diet: A Short Story from Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman
Kurt Cobain by Michael Martin
In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood by Brian McDonald
Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Alan Moore
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
ttyl Lauren Myracle
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
I Like Gays: A Short Story from Naked by David Sedaris
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
How to Get Suspended and Influence People by Adam Selzer
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones
Dragon Ball: The Monkey King by Akira Toriyama
Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel Cecily Von Ziegesar
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems
Now, all banned/challenged book lists are different. These two were compiled from the Illinois Library Association, and they in turn base their lists off reports to the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. But they do provide the reasoning behind the report. (The one for Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary is hilarious.) Though the pattern is about as clear as Liberace's gender preference in dating.
With the exception of Lolita, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Vampire Academy and Twilight series, and Living Dead Girl, all the books I bolded were required reading in either middle school or high school. Unwind is on my desk waiting to be read and The Handmaid's Tale and Twisted are on my to-read list. Plus I've added a few more. (I'm itching to read One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies based on that title alone!)
How about you guys? How many on the list have you read?
Banned/Challenged Books of 2006 (May 2005-May 2006)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou*
When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Forever by Judy Blume
Doing It by Melvin Burgess
The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Homo by Judy Carter
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky*
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
The Teenage Girl's Survival Guide by Jeremy Daldry
The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey
Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a gURL by Esther Drill*
Born Too Short: The Confessions of an Eight-Grade Basket Case bu Dan Elish
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Geography Club by Brent Hartinger*
GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens by Kelly Huegel
The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual by Mavis Jukes
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Alice on the Outside by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Choke: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Leaving Disneyland by Alexander Parsons
Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
The Buffalo Tree by Adam Rapp
Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds
And Tango Makes Three by Justin and Peter Parnell Richardson*
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl by Charleen Touchette
Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba
This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
*also appears on the 2010 list
Banned/Challenged Books of 2010 (May 2009-May 2010)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
Buster's Sugartime by Marc Tolon Brown
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Sex for Busy People: The Art of the Quickie for Lovers on the Go by Emily Dubberley
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Aura by Carlos Fuentes
The Dead Man in Indian Creek by Mary Downing Hahn
Lesbian Kama Sutra by Kat Harding
Hills Like White Elephants: A Short Story: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
Survivor Type: A Short Story from Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen
Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles
The Crack Cocaine Diet: A Short Story from Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman
Kurt Cobain by Michael Martin
In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood by Brian McDonald
Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Alan Moore
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
ttyl Lauren Myracle
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
I Like Gays: A Short Story from Naked by David Sedaris
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
How to Get Suspended and Influence People by Adam Selzer
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones
Dragon Ball: The Monkey King by Akira Toriyama
Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel Cecily Von Ziegesar
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems
Now, all banned/challenged book lists are different. These two were compiled from the Illinois Library Association, and they in turn base their lists off reports to the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. But they do provide the reasoning behind the report. (The one for Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary is hilarious.) Though the pattern is about as clear as Liberace's gender preference in dating.
With the exception of Lolita, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Vampire Academy and Twilight series, and Living Dead Girl, all the books I bolded were required reading in either middle school or high school. Unwind is on my desk waiting to be read and The Handmaid's Tale and Twisted are on my to-read list. Plus I've added a few more. (I'm itching to read One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies based on that title alone!)
How about you guys? How many on the list have you read?