It’s time to Celebrate Banned Books Week
Hello Fossil it’s Banned Books Week, this annual celebration of the freedom to read has become very popular in all schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association; Every year, libraries and bookstores around the country use the week to highlight censorship by displaying books that are challenged and/or banned, and hosting events about the issue. More than 11,300 books have been challenged in libraries and schools since 1982, when Banned Books Week began.
The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with restrictions in libraries and schools. While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. Today the most frequently challenged books are-
The 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2012-13
- Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
- And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- Scary Stories (series) by Alvin Schwartz
- The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
Doing some research on Banned books I found some reasons books are usually banned. But why would anyone want to ban books? According to the American Library Association – The first reason is sexually explication. According to the ALA, this is the No. 1 reason for banning books in the past decade. Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” was challenged for being “sexually explicit,” because clearly high school students are mature enough for sex ed, but not for this kind of literature. Ironically, the book discusses the issues with restriction. Another reason is foul language; “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is one of the most frequently challenged books as of 2012-13, and the commonly aired complaints that Alexie uses profanity, including the “F-word” and “N-word”. Yes, seeing vulgar language pop up can be surprising and jarring. Although, this may be how the author intended it to make you feel, like in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian the troubling state of schools on Indian reservations, jarring is a suitable approach. Religious point of view is always a big conflict in everything we do; this would be reason No. 3 for banning a book, for an example the two series that seem to get the most wrath are The Harry Potter books and the Twilight series, they certainly aren’t the only ones targeted for their “ungodly” content, though they certainly are attacked often. Books advocating the use of drugs are, of course, frequently censored titles; but even books that serve as warning signs against the dangers of drugs have been removed from school libraries. There are plenty more reasons that a book can be banned but to list everything would take novel to write.
Cited Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments
http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/banned-books
