BookFinder.com Journal

American Library Association's most challenged books 2010

The American Library Association (ALA) once again released it's list of books which were most often challenged by the public to be banned from libraries in America.  As usual most of the books are children's or YA titles and are challanged by parents who believe they are targeted to an age group too young for the content. 

Top 10

1. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality, religious viewpoint, 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, violence

3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: Insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

6. Lush by Natasha Friend
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

7. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
Reasons: Sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: Drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

9. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: Homosexuality, sexually explicit

10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, violence

Banned Books becoming available in North Africa

One of the side effects of the cultural revolutions occurring across the Middle East is that some of the censorship on literature is beginning to be lifted.  Many books that were once considered dangerous or offensive by local governments in Egypt and Tunisia are beginning to find their way to readers according to The Guardian (via Moby Lives). 

The newspaper explains that several books critical of the ousted regimes are now finding their way into bookstores. Finding books like La Regente de Carthage by Nicolas Beau and Habib Bourguiba: La Trace et l'Heritage by Michel Camau are a good sign of things to come and we hope that Egypt and Tunisia can continue their march towards a more progressive government.

In other good news, Cairo's Tahrir Square will host a book fair later this month as a way to partially make up for the cancellation of the Cairo Book Fair which was abandoned in January.

Buying banned books in Jordan

The LA Times Jacket Copy Blog did a neat little story about Al Taliya Books in Amman, Jordan; known as THE place to go when you are in the market for a banned book in the Middle East.

But his shop is known as the place in Amman to get forbidden fruits of knowledge. Even the government official in charge of restricting them recently announced in a newspaper article that "stopping books from reaching the people is a page we've turned."

Most requested book? Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses."

 

Banned Books Week: Top 10 most challenged titles

The American Library Association (ALA) has issued their annual list of the 10 most frequently challenged books from US libraries.  There's a number of the usual suspects on the list, and while I'm still flabbergasted that there are people out there who are so concerned about the content in these books that they are requesting that they be removed from libraries (To Kill a Mockingbird? Really?) I do take some comfort in the fact that these books are still readily available for those who want them.

What I do want to know is how you can cite nudity as a reason for banning a book?  Unless these books have lift up flaps, and I am fairly certain they don't, an anatomy description shouldn't be grounds for a banning; especially when "offensive language" gets its own category.

To me the most offensive book in this list still got the top spot, just not for the reason I would have slotted it in.  Lauren Myracle's TTYL series is written entirely text message shorthand (Pls no, I h8 it), and for that alone I think it should be banned.

1. The TTYL series by Lauren Myracle for Nudity, sexually explicit, drugs, offensive language,and being unsuited to the age group.
2. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson for homosexuality.
3. The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit content, anti-family, offensive language, religious viewpoints, being unsuited to age group, drugs, suicide.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee for racism, offensive language, and being unsuited to age group.
5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer for sexually explicit scenes, religious viewpoints, and being unsuited to age group.
6. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger for sexually explicit scenes, offensive language, and being unsuited to age group
7. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult for sexism, homosexuality, being sexually explicit, having offensive language, religious viewpoints, drugs, suicide, violence, and being unsuited to age group.
8. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things by Carolyn Mackler for being Sexually explicit, having offensive language,and being unsuited to age group.
9. The Color Purple by Alice Walker for being Sexually explicit, having offensive language,and being unsuited to age group.
10. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for nudity, being Sexually explicit, having offensive language,and being unsuited to age group.

E-books in North Korea...

Despite being one of the most heavily censored nations on the planet the northern half of the Korean peninsula is dabbling in e-books.  The whole process is made easier but just washing over that whole digital rights business.

Banned books and challenges

It's Banned Books Week very shortly and as a ramp up I was looking at some material about which books had been banned or challenged in the past few years, which is where I came across this map.  I think it's really interesting to see, partly because I thought I might see a state or region pushing ahead in the number of bans, but in reality it almost looks like the population distribution.  So much for my conspiracy theories.

Strangely enough no one found anything shocking enough to challenge in Las Vegas, go figure.

Manga ruled as child pornography by US Court

I just had this io9 article sent to me which revolves around a literary censorship issue that has erupted.

A prolific collector of various types of manga in Iowa faces 15 years in prison because some of the books in his collection appeared to depict minors engaged in sexual acts. 

From a Wired article on the case:

Christopher Handley, described by his lawyer as a “prolific collector” of manga, pleaded guilty last week to mailing obscene matter, and to “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Three other counts were dropped in a plea deal with prosecutors.

The 39-year-old office worker was charged under the 2003 Protect Act, which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and which lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Handley’s guilty plea makes him the first to be convicted under that law for possessing cartoon art, without any evidence that he also collected or viewed genuine child pornography. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison

It's a case to keep an eye on, especially if you happen to own the collected works of Nabokov

Banned Books

The American Library Association (ALA) has published its list of the most challenged books of 2008.  Top spot was once again taken by "And Tango Makes Three" the award winning children's book about two male penguins who become parents however Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner (which was challenged because of the books rape scene), Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy (for being violent and anti-religious), Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (drugs, suicide, language) and a myriad of other titles were also heavily challenged.

The ALA explained that in total there were 513 challenges last year, which resulted in books being pulled from library shelves 74 times.  The ALA defines a challenge as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

I think we have covered this topic on many occasions here at the BookFinder.com Journal so I will keep this brief but I am constantly amazed that complaints are being filed about books like Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, and picture books about pengins.  Parents should have a keen interest in what their children read, and as such help guide them to make good decisions.  But I think libraries should be free of censorship and screening and even though only 74 books were removed from the shelves of libraries that was still about 1 for every 7 complaints. 

It makes me wonder if the people complaining about these books shout as loudly about the violence on TV (even in the news), sexuality in advertizements and course language in music...

Full list Via The Guardian

Overcoming self-censorship

It’s Banned Books Week, and I’m trying to stop being a victim of censorship. Self-censorship.

Charlie and I took a flight to Canada shortly after 9/11. He was consistently waved through security, while I was stopped at every stage; as a young man with brown skin and a goatee, it was painfully obvious that I was being racially profiled. At one point, a security agent started methodically thumbing through my book, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Given his reaction, it was obvious to me that I’d made a mistake carrying something with “Assassin” in the title, and that for my own safety, I needed to be more cautious when flying, by avoiding “suspicious” books.

For the past seven years, I’ve been incredibly careful about the books I carry with me on planes, to avoid being seen as suspicious. Anything could give offense. For example, I wanted to give my grandfather in India a book on early Middle Eastern history; it pissed me off, but I self-censored at the last minute, worried about the consequences of taking it with me on a flight to India.

I’m now in Canada again for a few days, and for the first time since 9/11, I’ve worked up the courage to bring a “suspicious” book onto a plane: a copy of Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth, a collection of articles about radical environmentalists. I’m not trying to prove any kind of a point by bringing it; I’d started reading the book at home, and just wanted to finish it.

I hope my tiny act of personal bravery doesn’t backfire, but I’m finally willing to take the chance. I’ve spent this decade self-censoring, out of fear of what people who have power over me might think. I’m heartsick, and I’ve had enough.

Posted by Anirvan

ABFFE wins Indiana censorship lawsuit

BookFinder.com’s a member of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), which worked with the Media Coalition to overturn an Indiana law that might force most local booksellers to register their inventories with the state.

Per Publisher’s Weekly:

“The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression took a victory yesterday when a federal judge dismissed an Indiana law requiring retailers to register ‘sexually explicit’ material with the state…Judge Sarah Evans Baker…said in her ruling that the law has too vast a reach ‘as written.’ She elaborated: ‘A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale—all incidents of unquestionably lawful, non-obscene, non-pornographic material being sold to adults—would appear to necessitate registration under the statute.’ Ultimately, Judge Baker said that ‘such a vague mandate will be unduly burdensome’ and ‘will have a chilling effect on expression.’”

Read the full Publisher’s Weekly article…

[Now reading: Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages by Alex Wright]

Posted by Anirvan