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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
 Posted - 10/04/2005 : 06:16:50 AM
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Or so I would imagine.
For an exercise, let's see how many of the Top 100 Most Challenged books between 1990 and 2000 we've read.
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The highest ranked book I've read on the list and it's a frickin' American masterpiece? I know complaints largely stem from objections over a certain verboten word, but anybody that objects obviously hasn't read the book because Jim is one of the most decent people that Twain ever created.
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
It seems a bit cheap to list the entire Harry Potter series as a single work, it'd be interesting to see which has the most challenged of the batch. I'm picking Goblet of Fire, simply for the last half of the book. This only covers through 2000 though, so it'd miss the last few.
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
I would imagine that this applies to bookstores, simply because I can't imagine the school that would take Madonna's book. Well, outside of Holcroft.
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
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
It's actually a bit rough and a bit scary for a children's book, but that's pretty much the way Dahl was. I would probably recommend other works by Dahl over this one for smaller kids, but it's still a pretty good book. At a guess, it's probably one of those "Magic is the DEVIL" picks.
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Julie of the Wolves... that almost sounds familiar, but I can't exactly recall if I've read it or not.
After checking Google, I'm sure that I did, I just can't remember anything about it.
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Yet another classic book promoting racial tolerance; presumably suffers from a double whammy of inappropriate language and frank sexual discussion.
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
I'm really not sure about this one. Is the notion that the world isn't fair something that high school students need to be shielded from?
I understand that there are two versions of this though, so the issue may be with the longer version that I haven't read.
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
Offends the killer dog lobby I guess. I don't think Cujo would have been my first pick for Stephen King on the list; why not The Stand or It?
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Okay, now this one just baffles me.
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
It really disturbs me that more people have trouble with James and the Giant Peach than The Anarchist Cookbook.
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
See, I fully support this book's inclusion in every high school English curriculum on the grounds that I had to read it, it sucked, and, by God, every student in America ought to have to suffer through it the same I did. On the other hand, it's really one of the first occasions where I could read a description of a character and know that they were going to die from their introduction.
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
I really think that this ought to be required reading for juvenile delinquents, might give them something to think about the next time they decide to pick on the class outcast.
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
Man, people really seem to hate Judy Blume. On the other hand, when you crank out as many books as she has, you're bound to have created a book that will offend somebody.
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Injun Joe? I really can't think of anything else...
I can't help but think that Twain would probably be disappointed that he didn't have more books on this list.
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Some people have far, far, far too much time on their hands, even by my standards.
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
This one kinda caught my off-guard simply because I'm surprised that it's stuck around long enough to be controversial in the 1990s. Twain I can understand as they're literary masterpieces, but Little Black Sambo? Is this a legacy thing, where they just keep putting the same book on the list every decade by sheer momentum?
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I can't really remember it all that well as it's been almost fifteen years since I've read it, but I have read it.
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Huh, only eleven out of 100, though it goes up a bit if you seperate the Harry Potter books.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 08:36:22 AM
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Well, I can't exactly argue that America Psycho is appropriate school-age material. While some of these are just silly, some of them are clearly not suitable for small children.
Sigh. I considered it a lucky break that I managed to avoid Huckleberry Finn as an assigned text 3 years running in high school, although now I think of it, A Jest of God and A Separate Peace weren't exactly thrillers. |
Edited by - twitterpate on 10/04/2005 08:42:07 AM |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 10:22:21 AM
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Ubiq, I've never been real impressed with the American Library Association's (ALA) banned book statistics. While I find a lot of the books to be challenged for ridiculous reasons, virtually all of the challenges are occurring at secondary and elementary school level. Now, would I want my first grader reading "2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite"? No, I wouldn't. I'm assuming you would probably think it is fine. If I go to the school board and challenge the use of that book, it ends up on the ALA Challenged list. Does that mean there is some evil plot to censor freedom of speech? No, it's simply a matter of people disagreeing on what is appropriate, at what age. In general, the list is a scare mongering tactic.
The ROPe gives you three options, convert, submit, or die. There is a fourth, resist. |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 10:38:45 AM
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I agree. The ALA refuses to take a position backing the jailed citizen book-loaners of Cuba because they "aren't really liberians,"--and actually, in one interview I read in the ALA Journal, an ALA VP forthrightly spoke in favor of Castros' regime--at the same time that they lump together every dubious example of 'censorship' they can find in order to inflate their scaremongering statistics.
Terrahawk is correct that most of these are 'challenged' books, and that if they were explicit about the circumstances, most people would just shrug. Asking for a public library's subscription copy of Playboy Magazine to be moved behind the liberian's desk so that kids can't access it--an example from several years back--would not qualify as censorship to most folks. In several cases, parents just want to opt their own kids out of a mandatory reading assignment. That's a rather goofy example of purported censorship.
In the larger legal sense, no book is 'censored' in the U.S. unless the government makes it illegal or own or sell. Certainly there's in issue involved in letting groups from either the right (Harry Potter, etc.) or left (Huck Finn) attempt to remove books from mandatory reading lists--which constitute the bulk of such incidents--but that's a rather more nuanced situation than the bald cry of 'censorship' would imply.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 11:52:52 AM
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I remember in high school (back in the day when you had to walk uphill both ways) that there were a couple of book assignments where you could opt to read a different book if you or your parents had objections to the first book. No one, students or teachers, thought anything of it, if someone opted out.
The ROPe gives you three options, convert, submit, or die. There is a fourth, resist. |
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 12:11:15 PM
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| I sincerely hope that The New Joy of Gay Sex was not an assigned reading! |
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Paul LoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 12:53:15 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by twitterpate
I sincerely hope that The New Joy of Gay Sex was not an assigned reading!
I think the objection there was that said work represented such a striking departure from the time-tested wisdom of its predecessor, the original The Joy of Gay Sex, that folks' instinctive fear of new ideas kicked in.
"...You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged." |
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KarlAllen
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 3:01:51 PM
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>7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
>It seems a bit cheap to list the entire Harry Potter series as a >single work, it'd be interesting to see which has the most >challenged of the batch.
My guess is that they're all challenged pretty much equally on the theory that they teach that "witchcraft" is okay. If you're of the opinion that one of them is a problem, you'll want them all gotten rid of.
>41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
>Yet another classic book promoting racial tolerance; presumably >suffers from a double whammy of inappropriate language and frank >sexual discussion.
I'd bet money it's because someone uses the N-word in it. I believe that's what gets Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn into trouble as well.
>57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
>It really disturbs me that more people have trouble with James and >the Giant Peach than The Anarchist Cookbook.
I'm guessing it's a numbers thing. I'd think lots of libraries would not carry the Anarchist Cookbook anyway (and I can see their point). They'll all have James and the Giant Peach, though. More chances to object (for whatever reason, like you the potential evil nature of JatGP escapes me).
>88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
>Some people have far, far, far too much time on their hands, even >by my standards.
There's apparently a topless woman in one of the Waldo pictures, I seem to recall. A beach scene, I think. I'm pretty sure that's what generates these complaints.
K |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 3:51:52 PM
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4, 5, 41, 44, 52, 70, and 84.
What always yanked my chain about people wanting books banned is when they want it for reasons that don't hold up if you actually read the book. Out around the Tacoma area, there were folks who complained enough to get Huck Finn pulled from somewhere because they decided that Huck himself was a defier of God - specifically, when he says that if God condoned slavery, then he'd rather go to hell then see Jim as a slave again.
It's funny that the knee-jerkers would read the complete opposite of what Twain intended with that remark. If they'd read the whole book up to that point, they'd realize that the verson of God Huck's defying is not the sort of God worshipped by most Christians today, but an absurd one fed to him by the woman who raised him, a woman who proves throughout the story that as much as she reads the Bible, she just doesn't understand it.
Oh, and Ubiq? I fully agree on Lord of the Flies. |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 4:18:04 PM
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Well, allow me to stick up for "Lord of the Flies". It's possible I wouldn't care for it now, but back in high school it was my second favourite book that I was assigned to read, the first being Watership Down.
Stephen King agrees with me, as readers of "Hearts in Atlantis" and "The Talisman" will know. :)
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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Juniper
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
616 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 6:18:18 PM
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quote:
In several cases, parents just want to opt their own kids out of a mandatory reading assignment.
Yep, a friend who went to a pretty tony private school told me that that was pretty much par for the course. Kid doesn't want to read book, parents lodge complaint against said book, school not wishing to offend potentional givers of endowments pull book etc. And oh for a rich parent in 8th grade that could have spared me Johnny Tremain. Good god I hated that book, just put on a glove and shut the hell up Johnny.
"The Devil Made this Movie for You!" |
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tam1MI
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
558 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 6:26:58 PM
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Here's the list of challenged books I've read:
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
55. Cujo by Stephen King
77. Carrie by Stephen King
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
I guess I'm either a total subversive or a complete bookworm, LOL!
It should be noted here that this is a list of books that were challenged in EVERY library, not just school libraries. I would find it hard to believe that schools were carrying such works as AMERICAN PSYCHO, SEX BY MADONNA, and THE SLEEPING BEATY TRILOGY BY ANNE RICE (it's a S&M porn version of the fairy tale), much less that they had them on their required reading lists! |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 7:24:02 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by tam1MI
It should be noted here that this is a list of books that were challenged in EVERY library, not just school libraries. I would find it hard to believe that schools were carrying such works as AMERICAN PSYCHO, SEX BY MADONNA, and THE SLEEPING BEATY TRILOGY BY ANNE RICE (it's a S&M porn version of the fairy tale), much less that they had them on their required reading lists!
Sorry tam1MI, but I went to the ALA site and this list is for all sources, not just public libraries. For 2000-2003, there were 2067 challenges. Of those 436 were public libraries or university libraries. School or school libraries represent 1,536 of the total. The rest were for miscellaneous sources. As Ken (HPOJ) also points out, some or most of the challenges are probably fairly reasonable if you knew the details. So, we have 2,067 challenges for a four year period with a population of approximately 300 million people. I don't think we are looking at an epidemic.
The chart from the ALA is here:
[url]http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/challengesbyinstitutions20002003.pdf[/url]
The ROPe gives you three options, convert, submit, or die. There is a fourth, resist. |
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 7:59:20 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Terrahawk
Now, would I want my first grader reading "2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite"? No, I wouldn't. I'm assuming you would probably think it is fine.
Depends on the book; I haven't read it so I can't attest as to it's quality, subject matter, or reading level. If it's well-written on a level a first-grader could read, I probably wouldn't have any problems with it.
quote:
If I go to the school board and challenge the use of that book, it ends up on the ALA Challenged list. Does that mean there is some evil plot to censor freedom of speech?
Depends, are you requesting that your child be given an alternate book or that the book be removed from the entire curriculum because you believe that it conflicts with a particular viewpoint?
The former is perfectly alright by me and I think that alternate works should be provided by the teacher (in English classes only, science is another thing entirely), so long as it's roughly the same length and reading level. Not only for people who don't want to read the assigned work, but for people who have already read the assigned work and want something different.
There has to be some limits on such a thing though, eventually these students are going to wind up in college.
quote:
No, it's simply a matter of people disagreeing on what is appropriate, at what age.
My issue is not whether they think something is appropriate, it's whether or not that they've actually read the work in question before making the decision as to whether or not it's appropriate. Judging by some of these entries, I don't think that many people have, especially the classics.
I see quite a few names on the list that I can't imagine would be books that would appear in many libraries, which just screams "letter writing campaign" in the same fashion that the FCC recieved thousands upon thousands of complaints about this show or other from a handful of people.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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Marlowe
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
445 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 9:37:24 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Prankster
Well, allow me to stick up for "Lord of the Flies". It's possible I wouldn't care for it now, but back in high school it was my second favourite book that I was assigned to read, the first being Watership Down.
Stephen King agrees with me, as readers of "Hearts in Atlantis" and "The Talisman" will know. :)
Damn straight. (He also mentions it in On Writing.) I was actually never assigned LotF in school, I just read it when I was a kid because my mom had to read it for college and it looked interesting- and I loved it then, and I love it now.
While Cujo may seem an odd choice, it probably has the most explicit sex stuff for early King, what with Donna's affair with the tennis guy. Course, that doesn't come anywhere near a certain sene near the end of IT... (which, while certainly less brutal and sordid, has a lot more potential for offending folks)
Why the hell would anyone challenge A Wrinkle in Time? Seeing that and Slaughter-House Five on such a list makes me sad.
http://www.badmovieplanet.com/duckspeaks |
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 10:25:15 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Marlowe
While Cujo may seem an odd choice, it probably has the most explicit sex stuff for early King, what with Donna's affair with the tennis guy.
Ah, okay. I haven't read it, so I wasn't aware that was in there. I'm still kind of surprised that some of King's other works didn't crop on there, but Cujo and Carrie make since so they're probably among his best known works.
quote:
Why the hell would anyone challenge A Wrinkle in Time? Seeing that and Slaughter-House Five on such a list makes me sad.
I'm guessing A Wrinkle in Time probably falls under the "It's about Magic" banner. Slaughter-House Five? Who can say? It could be anything from social commentary to something so ludicrous as it points out the fact that Nazis targeted gays.
Maybe people just really hate time travel.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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