Every year for the past 29 years the American Library Association sponsors Banned Books Week: The Freedom To Read

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met.

This year read a banned book week falls on:
Saturday 2011 September 24 – Saturday 2011 October 01

The American Library Association maintains a list of The Top 100 Banned Novels Of The 20th Century for your reading pleasure.

Starting with this year there is even a web site and a domain dedicated to Banned Books Week called BannedBooksWeek.org

Lastly here is a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books Of 2010:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
   Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. 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
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
   Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
   Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit
10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence

Usually I find the yearly “most challenged” list to be a bit of bore.  Most of the time the books are challenged because they are in high school libraries,  have “bad words” that parents think they can insulate their children from and mention that homosexuals exist.   

This year I actually found the list interesting as there were 3 books listed ( in red ) that went beyond the “shame on you, bad words!” category.  

Number 5 was recommended to me by a neighbor, who I have tremendous respect for.    Anna is one of those innately talented people whose good qualities were enhanced even further by being brought up by an excellent family in an excellent environment. About as smart, well balanced and wholesome as a person can get and here is one of her books on a list people want to forbid.

I read “Brave New World” on my own when I was a teenager. One of the most thought provoking books in the world and I think any negative charges against it are flat out ridiculous. Ironically, the story makes people aware of the kind of dehumanization growing in our society that many religiously conservative people would object to. They are attacking a book that could be one of their best friends if they had the depth of thought to see it.

I also read “Nickeled And Dimed” and I am truly amazed it has been challenged. It is the story of a journalist who abandoned all her wealth and resources for about year to see how easy it is to start over, survive and rise by working minimum wage jobs. If I hadn’t been reading the most challenged list for years I would say that the opposition to this book is politically motivated, but I know that are a lot of myopic parents getting bent out of shape over curse words despite living in a world of REAL of truly serious problems.

There are so many good things I could say that I feel clogged.

Please read or talk about a book from one of these lists during Banned Books Week 2011.

All freedom and all progress is ultimately rooted in the free flow of ideas.

The American Library Association maintains a list of the Top 100 Banned Or Challenged Novels Of The 20th Century. Below is a list of those books that have been confirmed as being banned or challenged. The ones in bold are currently on the Top 10 Challenged Books Of 2009. The books in blue are books I have read so far.

What banned books have you read?

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
10. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
11. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
13. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
14. Animal Farm by George Orwell
15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
16. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
17. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
20. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. Native Son by Richard Wright
23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
24. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
25. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
26. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
27. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
28. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
29. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
30. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
31. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
32. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
33. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
34. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
35. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
36. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
37. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
38. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
39. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
40. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
41. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
42. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
43. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
44. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
45. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
46. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Every year for the past 27 years the American Library Association sponsors Banned Books Week: The Freedom To Read

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met.

This year read a banned book week falls on:
Saturday 2009 September 26 – Saturday 2009 October 03

The American Library Association maintains a list of The Top 100 Banned Novels Of The 20th Century for your reading pleasure.

You can also view a Google Map of currently challenged books in the U.S. and click on a location to read about the book where people are attempting to ban it and why.

If you are feeling more on the edge, you can choose to read a book from the American Library Associations list of The Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008:

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

Happy forbidden reading!