Freadom to Read: The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club was challenged at a high school because it had “explicit” and “inappropriate material.”

The book was made into a movie in 1993, and here is an image of the movie poster.

Source:  R. Doyle. Books Challenged or Banned in 2004-2005. 

Freadom to Read: The Giver

The book, The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, won the Newbery Medal in 1994, but it has been banned and challenged because of references to various forms of death.


A movie based on The Giver came to theaters in 2014, and featured Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, and Katie Holmes.

Official movie poster

Freadom to Read: Freakonomics

In 2006, a school board member in Illinois challenged several titles, including Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner and The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan, because these books clashed with her beliefs.

The Sullivan University library has both of these titles at the library. Stop by and talk with one of the librarians if you want to borrow one of these books, and stay tuned to the library's blog the next two weeks for more information about banned and challenged books.


Source: Doyle, R. Books Challenged or Banned in 2006-2007. Retrieved from: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/banned/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/free_downloads/2007shortlist.pdf

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Banned Books Week 2017-Celebrate the Right to Read

Image copyright by Roger Roth, 2006

Each year the Sullivan University Library joins the American Library Association in observing Banned Books Week. This annual celebration of our right to access books and materials without censorship commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society—the freedom to read freely. To help celebrate the freedom to read, the Sullivan University librarians invite everyone to come and see the Banned Books Week display in the library, participate in the Banned Books Week scavenger hunt, and to read some banned or challenged books.

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Banned Book Week 2016

Artwork by ALA

Each year during September, Sullivan University Library joins the American Library Association in observing Banned Books Week. An annual celebration of our right to access books and materials without censorship, Banned Books Week commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society—the freedom to read freely—and encourages us not to take this freedom for granted.

Since 1990, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 10,000 book challenges. A challenge is a formal, written complaint requesting a book be removed from library shelves or school curriculum. While books have been and continue to be banned, the fact is that, in a majority of cases, the challenged books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read. (ALA, 2016).

Visit the library to browse through our Banned Books Week display, and go to the library’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SullivanLex) and blog (http://lexlibrary.blogspot.com/) to see–and learn about–some of the books that have been banned or challenged. To learn more about Banned Books Week, you can also visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/.

Did an autobiography really get challenged?

CHALLENGED


Yes, since it was published posthumously in 1965, The Autobiography of Malcolm X,  has been challenged for ‘anti-white’ statements and references to criminal activity. The book contains information about the life of slain activist, Malcolm X.


Source: Banned Books that Shaped America. (2013). Banned Books Week. Retrieved from: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica

Big Brother Is Watching

CHALLENGED

No, we are not talking about a popular CBS reality show. Instead, today's post is about George Orwell’s novel 1984. It was challenged in Florida in the early 1980s for being pro-Communist and having explicit sexual references.

Source: “Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century”; http://tinyurl.com/n6w3et

New Banned Book Reader

Michelle Knickerbocker reads Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

You can have your picture taken with your favorite Banned Book too! Just come by from 7:30 am-6 pm and tell one of the librarians. 

Challenging a baseball story

Today's highlighted banned or challenged book is Baseball Saved Us. Published in 1993, it tells the story of life in a Japanese internment camp.

The children's book was challenged at a school system in Connecticut because it contained derogatory language.

Source: R. Doyle. Books Challenged or Banned in 2006-2007.

Silencing a Mockingbird

For the next couple of weeks the library will highlight a banned or challenged book to increase awareness. Today's featured title is To Kill a Mockingbird.

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was banned from a Canadian classroom in 2009 because of racial slurs and offensive language found in the book.

Source: R. Doyle. Books Challenged or Banned in 2009-2010.

To learn more about banned or challenged books, stop by the library or go to the American Library Association's website. 

Banned Books Week 2015

Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association

Each year during September, Sullivan University Library joins the American Library Association in observing Banned Books Week event. An annual celebration of our right to access books and materials without censorship, Banned Books Week commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society—the freedom to read freely—and encourages us not to take this freedom for granted. Since 1990, the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has recorded more than 10,000 book challenges. A challenge is a formal, written complaint requesting a book be removed from library shelves or school curriculum. (ALA, 2015).

To help celebrate the freedom to read, the Sullivan University librarians invite students, faculty, and staff to come to the library between the hours of 7:30am and 6pm, Monday-Friday, to have their pictures made with a banned or challenged book. We have several books in the library that have been banned or challenged, and you may take your picture with one from the library’s collection or a favorite banned or challenged book that you own already. With your permission, your picture will be posted on the library’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SullivanLex).

Even if you decide not to have your picture taken, please visit the library to browse through the Banned Books Week display, and go to the library’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SullivanLex) and blog (http://lexlibrary.blogspot.com/) to see some of the books that have been banned or challenged. Source: American Library Association. (2015, August 18). Banned and Challenged Books: Clip Art and Free Downloads. Retrieved from: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/freedownloads

Banning a Bridge

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

This book was banned or challenged so many times before 2001 that it was #8 on the American Library Association’s list of 100 most banned or challenged books from 1990 to 2000!  The most common reason for banning or challenging this book is the theme of death.  Other reasons include: offensive language and concerns that it promotes Satanism, violence, and witchcraft.  One town in Connecticut went so far as to say that having the book in schools violated the First Amendment “since the use of witchcraft in the book equated with the Wiccan religion.”  

Source: Baldassarro, R. Wolf. (2012).  http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/11/04/banned-books-awareness-bridge-to-terabithia/

Yes, Virginia, even the dictionary (and a history book) have been banned

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

This dictionary was banned from a California classroom in 2010 when a parent filed a complaint that her child came across a term in the dictionary that the parent thought was too sexually explicit for children.

Source: R. Doyle. (2010). Books Banned or Challenged in 2009-2010.

A People’s History of the United States

Author:  Howard Zinn

This book was challenged in 2009 in a Virginia high school advanced placement class, “because the book is ‘un-American and leftist propaganda,’” (Doyle, 2009).  More recently, after the author’s death in 2010, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels attempted to have it banned from all classrooms in Indiana.  He then back tracked and claimed he only wanted it removed from eighth grade classrooms because children at that age are very impressionable.

Source: R. Doyle. (2007). Books Challenged or Banned in 2006-2007.

Great Scott! Banning the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This book had a bit of a rocky start before it was even a fully completed novel.  In 1923, several magazines refused to publish it because of the controversial content.  It has been challenged throughout the years by several different colleges and high schools, and they cite language and sexual content as the reasons for challenging it. It has never been fully removed from any shelves or classrooms though.

Source: Karolides, N.J., Bald, M., & Sova, D.B. (2011). 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature. Checkmark Books: New York.

"Oh, Bother!" said Pooh

Winnie the Pooh

Author:  A. A. Milne

The only known attempt at banning this book in the United States occurred in Kansas in 2006.  A group of parent listed it, along with a few other books such as Charlotte’s Web, because of the presence of talking animals.  The parents felt that talking animals were an insult to God.  The most notable banning of this book may be in Russia in 2009.  Russia’s Justice Ministry claimed it to be pro-Nazi “because a depiction of Winnie-the-Pooh wearing a swastika was discovered among the personal possessions of a known political extremist” (Baldassarro, 2011).

Sources:  

Elizabeth Warkentin Special to the, S. (2011, September 26). Defending literature can take its toll. Toronto Star (Canada).

R. Wolf Baldassarro, http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2011/06/19/banned-books-awareness-winniethepooh/

Russia Hammers Winnie the Pooh: The Pooh Bear Gets Banned. (2009, August 23). The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204884404574364964010507896