Celebrate Banned Book Week With Me

It is always so surprising to me that patrons of the library thing that we are banning books when banned book week rolls around. I didn't keep count last year, but NUMEROUS, patrons came up with The Bible from our display table to express an irate complaint that we had banned it. After calming them down through a detailed explanation of what was going on, things were usually better. I'd tell you all about what it is, but I'd be preaching to the choir. Glad my reader base is smart :)

Enjoy these graphics all from here and check out the "To Read" list at the end of this page.

Challenged Book Lists

The highlighted Yellow Titles are ones I've read, the Pink Titles are on my "to read" list

The Top Ten Challenged Books of 2011 - Data from ALA

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
   Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence
4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
   Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
   Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
   Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
    Reasons: offensive language; racism

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 

23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston 
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison 
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison 
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell 
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright 
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey 
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London 
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin 
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren 
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien 
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair 
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence 
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess 
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin 
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote 
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie 
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron 
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence 
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut 
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs 
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence 
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer 
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller 
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser 
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike