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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

ALA's Top 10 Banned and Challenged for 2010

The American Library Assoc. and Office for Intellectual Freedom have released their annual top 10 list of the most frequently banned and/or challenged books from the previous year.  And as always, most of them are for kids and teens:


Out of 348 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom
  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


Anyone shocked by any of them?  Any you were expecting to see on the list from previous years that fell off?  Talk to me, people.  Has your town/school/library system ever gone through any kerfuffles over lovely, lovely books?
I don't think I need to tell you (again) how I feel about censorship.  Or that a lot of these either just made my list or got bumped up (thanks, ignorant assholes!)  I hope all of these authors see a spike in sales.

10 comments:

  1. I'm proud to have read several and have one or two on my TBR.

    Great post.

    Btw, thank you so so so so much for your concern :) *hugs* I needed that and it meant allot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What religious viewpoints are in Twilight? Are they taking about the whole vampires don't/do have a souls?

    This list makes me want to buy every book on it that I don't have.

    If it were possible I'd slip copies of these books into all the schools/libraries that banned them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Religious and political viewpoints! *Viewpoints*! The nerve! The Audacity!

    Yeah, now I think I'll read some more of these books.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whaaaat?! I'm flabbergasted that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been challenged because it contains racism. I mean, if the book condoned racism, that's one thing. But it challenges the idea of privilege. That sort of thing needs to be shared because too few people even know what "privilege" means!
    I can't even! *throws hands in the air*

    - Jackie

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can't even! indeed, Jackie...
    It's not the first time its been banned/challenged, either. It gets it pretty frequently. And is SUCH a good book!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Definitely bumping up some of those on my list! Thanks for this.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This list always breaks my heart. The Hunger Games? REALLY? OMG. And, um, I really don't get the Twilight "religious viewpoint" objection. Say whaaa?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Guess they didn't get an advanced copy of Bumped??? LOL

    Heather

    ReplyDelete
  9. I just read the synopsis of A Tango Makes Three because it's one of the three books on this list I'm not really familiar with. The fact that it's getting banned just indicates how intolerant our society is, and that makes me really sad.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Liz, I made a point of reading And Tango Makes Three every year during the BBW readathon. It's a really cute NONFICTION story, and I don't think it's offensive at all. I don't know that it ever addresses homosexuality beyond saying "Tango is special: she has 2 daddies."
    And the fact is, this isn't uncommon in the bird world.

    ReplyDelete

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