Banned Books Week, September 30-October 6
Banned Books Week is a celebration of our freedom to read, protected by the first amendment. This week, Teens are encouraged to join the Kendallville Public Library online at www.facebook.com/kplteens to answer questions during Banned Books Week for the chance to win prizes! More information about Banned Books Week is available below, including questions and answers from the American Library Association, and the top 10 Banned Books of 2011.
Top 10 Banned Books of 2011
ttyl;
ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit;
unsuited to age group
The Color of Earth (series),
by Kim Dong Hwa
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
The Hunger Games trilogy,
by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language;
occult/satanic; violence
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
The Absolutely True Diary of
a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit;
unsuited to age group
Alice (series),
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
Brave New World,
by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually
explicit
What My Mother Doesn't Know,
by Sonya Sones
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
Gossip Girl (series),
by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
To Kill a Mockingbird,
by Harper Lee
Reasons: offensive language; racism
Learn about Banned Books from the American Library Association:
Does ALA ban books?
No. The ALA's Office
for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools,
and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the country. We
compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about
censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools. The ALA condemns
censorship and works to ensure free access to information. For more
information on ALA's efforts to raise awareness of censorship and promote
the freedom to read, please explore Banned
Books Week.
What's the difference between a challenge and a banning?
A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the
objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those
materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a
point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the
curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due
to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other
concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are
retained in the school curriculum or library collection.
Why are books challenged?
Books usually are challenged with the best intentions—to protect others,
frequently children, from difficult ideas and information. See Notable
First Amendment Cases.
Censorship can be subtle, almost imperceptible, as well as blatant and
overt, but, nonetheless, harmful. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty:
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of
the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that
one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing
mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the
owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private
injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only
on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the
expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as
well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still
more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of
the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is
almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of
truth, produced by its collision with error.
— On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from
“inappropriate” sexual content or “offensive” language. The following were
the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the
Office of Intellectual Freedom:
the material was considered to be "sexually explicit"
the material contained "offensive language"
the materials was "unsuited to any age group"
Although this is a commendable motivation, Free
Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library
Bill of Rights(ALA's basic policy concerning access to information)
states that, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that
parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict
the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.”
Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for
protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment.
As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas
v. Johnson , said most eloquently:
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that
the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because
society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to
keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky:
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't
believe in it at all.
Or these words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (" The
One Un-American Act." Nieman
Reports , vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20):
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all
subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
Who Challenges Books?
Throughout history, more and different kinds of people and groups of all
persuasions than you might first suppose, who, for all sorts of reasons,
have attempted—and continue to attempt—to suppress anything that conflicts
with or anyone who disagrees with their own beliefs.
In his book Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and
Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that “the lust to
suppress can come from any direction.” He quotes Phil Kerby, a former editor
of the Los Angeles Times, as saying, “Censorship is the strongest drive in
human nature; sex is a weak second.”
According to the Challenges
by Initiator, Institution, Type, and Year, parents challenge materials
more often than any other group.