Banned Books

[magid]

Cellio made me do it. Really. She posted a link to this site (list of 100 top banned books, 1990-2001), and a list of the books on it she's read. Of course I had to see what I've read...

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
20. .Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
32. .Blubber by Judy Blume
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Hey, that's more than 30%!
I found none of them objectionable; some are among my favorite books (though I'm more likely to dislike a book for an uninteresting story or poor writing than for particular "objectionable" things (whether violence or sex or bullies or racism or...)).

I shouldn't be surprised that so many of them are kid books: no one tries to ban grown up books the same way, figuring adults can choose for themselves. I've never understood why this logic isn't acceptable for kids. I once wanted to take a book out of the school library, a nice thick one (I was a book snob, always going for the thickest books, partly because I read so fast, and wanted to stay in the story for a while), and was told I couldn't, because it was for older kids. I later found the book, and there is absolutely nothing objectionable in it (though with the Anastasia books on the banned list, I wonder about people); they just were making the decision for me that I couldn't handle the book. And that should've been my decision.

I am also surprised by some of the other books on the list being objectionable. Some deal with hard topics (such as To Kill a Mockingbird), but lots of fiction does that, particularly young adult fiction; it's what I like about a lot of them. Portraying a world where there are bullies, or girls who get their period, or something similar, doesn't seem like enough of a reason to ask to ban a book. That's part of life, like it or not. I just don't understand why that should be kept out. And some of them don't do that, either (such as How to Eat Fried Worms, which is a little bit gross at times (What condiments do you put on worm? How do you prepare it?), but pretty innocuous. ), so I have no clue why they made this list...
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Comments

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

I share in your head-scratching. Of course, there's also the delicious irony of the school board -- it was in either Arkansas or Alabama (an A-letter state, anyway) -- that drafted a banned book policy for their libraries and then discovered that the Bible violated nearly all their criteria for acceptable literature.

As Susan Sontag once noted, real art has the capacity to make us uncomfortable...just like real life.

Bible

[magid.livejournal.com]

Of course the Bible wouldn't be acceptable; it's full of things like sex, rape, deception, war, fratricide, weapons of mass destruction (flood), other vigorously violent forms of death, etc.

I wonder if they just made an exception ("But it's the Bible!), or rethought their position.

Re: Bible

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm cynical or anything, but I imagine (too lazy to look it up) they just made an exception - it being The Bible and them being in a state that would think of making up a banned book policy in the first place.