{"id":609,"date":"2011-08-22T21:53:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T01:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=609"},"modified":"2011-08-22T21:56:24","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T01:56:24","slug":"why-wait-for-banned-books-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/why-wait-for-banned-books-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Wait For Banned Books Week?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given my ability to do anything on time these days, I’m going to go ahead and share the latest news on banned books now, as all is not quiet on the censorship front (to mangle the words of\u00a0 Erich Maria Remarque, himself author of a banned book).\u00a0 Following the recent controversy over the banning of Slaughterhouse Five<\/em> and Twenty Boy Summer <\/em>(which I’ve already written about) just a few days ago the Sherlock Holmes novella A Study in Scarlet<\/em> was banned\u00a0 in Albermarle County, Virginia for its anti-Mormon sentiment (which I’m afraid I missed noticing when I devoured the Sherlock Holmes stories in middle school. It seems like kids don’t pick up nearly what adults do from many of these books). Sex, violence, and religion aren’t the only reasons parents challenge books, although those are common reasons, and it’s not only conservatives who object to the content of books in libraries and schools. Brave New World <\/em>was banned in a school district in Seattle for its portrayal of American Indians as savages, and a new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn <\/em>was published with the removal of a word we dare not say these days, to make it palatable for schools. Sometimes a word is all it takes.<\/p>\n

A lot of people point out that during Banned Books Week, ALA also mentions challenged books (and therefore, it appears that more books are banned than actually are).\u00a0 The list below, though, is of books actually removed from libraries in the past six months (courtesy of information provided by the ALA for this article<\/a> in USA Today<\/em>). Read any of them? Maybe it’s time.<\/p>\n

1. Athletic Shorts<\/em>, by Chris Crutcher<\/p>\n

2. Big Momma Makes the World<\/em>, by Phyllis Root<\/p>\n

3. The Bonesetter\u2019s Daughter<\/em>, by Amy Tan<\/p>\n

4. Burn<\/em>, by Suzanne Phillips<\/p>\n

5. Great Sou<\/em>l, by Joseph Lelyveld<\/p>\n

6. It\u2019s a Book<\/em>, by Lane Smith<\/p>\n

7. Lovingly Alice<\/em>, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor<\/p>\n

8. The Marbury Lens<\/em>, by Andrew Smith<\/p>\n

9. Me Talk Pretty One Day<\/em>, by David Sedaris<\/p>\n

10. Mobile Suit Gundam: Seed Astray Vol. 3<\/em>, by Tomohiro Chiba<\/p>\n

11. My Darling, My Hamburger<\/em>, by Paul Zindel<\/p>\n

12. The Patron Saint of Butterflies<\/em>, by Cecilia Galante<\/p>\n

13. The Perks of Being a Wallflower<\/em>, by Stephen Chbosky<\/p>\n

14. Pit Bulls and Tenacious Guard Dogs<\/em>, by Carl Semencic<\/p>\n

15. Push<\/em>, by Sapphire<\/p>\n

16. Shooting Star<\/em>, by Fredrick McKissack Jr.<\/p>\n

17. The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley<\/em>, by Colin Thompson<\/p>\n

18. Vegan Virgin Valentine<\/em>, by Carolyn Mackler<\/p>\n

19. What My Mother Doesn\u2019t Know<\/em>, by Sonya Sones<\/p>\n

20. \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening to My Body?\u201d: Book for Boys<\/em>, by Lynda Madaras with Area Madaras<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Jennifer Petersen, the American Library Association<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given my ability to do anything on time these days, I’m going to go ahead and share the latest news on banned books now, as all is not quiet on the censorship front (to mangle the words of\u00a0 Erich Maria Remarque, himself author of a banned book).\u00a0 Following the recent controversy over the banning of<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[519,87,517,513,520,322,518,169,151,506,521,508],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-study-in-scarlet","tag-american-library-association","tag-banned-books","tag-banned-books-week","tag-brave-new-world","tag-censorship","tag-erich-maria-remarque","tag-every-child-left-behind","tag-school-libraries","tag-slaughterhouse-five","tag-the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn","tag-twenty-boy-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}