The Freedom to Read

Happy Banned Books Week! From September 24-October 1, libraries are highlighting "the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature" (ala.org). You can read more about it here on the American Library Association's website.

Banned Books Week was created to celebrate our right to intellectual freedom. It "stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them" (ala.org).

Here is a list of the most challenged books of 2010. "Challenged," means that people who believed that these books should not be accessible to people in libraries, schools, etc, pushed for them to be removed from collections:

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

Banned Books Week is a good time to reflect on why you read what you read. You have the marvelous freedom to walk into the library and pick up whatever book you want. No one can tell you what you can't read. You can make up your own mind, form your own convictions, and teach your children to make educated decisions.

Have you read any of the books on the list?



Laura
On behalf of the ACL