Banned Books week: Sept. 26 through Oct. 3
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National banned books week, which is designed to remind people that the practice of trying to keep books out of public libraries and schools is alive and well, this year runs from Sept. 26 to Oct. 3.
There have been more than 10,000 attempts to keep books out of public hands since the American Library Association began recording the practice electronically in 1990. Among the books that have been targeted for repression from young and not-so-young readers are “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “Forever” by Judy Blume.
According to a press release from the Catskill Ramapo Library System, there were 513 known attempts to remove books in 2008 — written complaints filed with a school or a library asking that specific books be removed from shelves because of content or appropriateness.
The top five most challenged books in 2008 were “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell (requested banning because of anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint and unsuited to age group); “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Phillip Pullman (cited for political viewpoint, religious viewpoint and violence); “TTYL: TTFN; L8R G8R” series by Lauren Myracle (for offensive language, sexual explicitness and unsuited to age group); “Scary Stories” series by Alvin Schwartz (for occult/satanism, religious viewpoint and violence); and “Bless Me, Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya (for occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint).
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 2:02 pm by Randi Weiner.
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No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See “National Hogwash Week.”
National Hogwash Week is at http://preview.tinyurl.com/sowell/
thanks for the site.
If you’ll re-read the post, it says that there were more than 10,000 attempts, including 513 attempts in 2008, to ban books. Just to keep the record straight.