The American Library Association's annual Banned Books Week begins one week from today, September 25-October 2. Sex educators: Don't let your school's Literature Department have all the fun with this one!
Books addressing teen sexuality -- especially homosexuality -- and related issues have been prominent on the ALA's annual list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Titles ever since 1982, when Banned Books Week was first established. The books, the reasons behind these challenges from parents/religious groups/political activists, and the responses to those challenges from school administration officials, librarians, student leaders, and school communities are worth talking about, as is the ALA's Banned Books Week motto: "Celebrate your freedom to read."
Lauren Myracle's novels for young adults top this year's list, with frequent challenges to titles including ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r. Her book Luv Ya Bunches also made headlines in 2009, when Scholastic Books (temporarily) banned the books from its school book fairs, citing parent complaints and a failure to "meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs"(Among other complaints, Milla -- one of the book's main characters -- has two moms. Gasp!) Myracle's repeat appearance on the Banned Books Week list is especially ripe for discussion: The primary message of her books is about tolerance and celebrating diversity.
Speaking of same-sex parenting... Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson's children's book And Tango Makes Three made the list this year, as it has every year since it was first published in 2005. Why? For daring to suggest that homosexuality is not unique to humans, and for retelling the true story of Ro and Silo, two male penguins in a long-term committed relationship at New York's Central Park Zoo who turned out to be pretty good parents. In 2005, when the first challenges to the book were coming in, Richardson famously told The New York Times, "We wrote the book to help parents teach children about same-sex parent families. It's no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks."
Stephen Chbosky's 1999 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower returns to the list again: The ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom reports that the book was challenged in schools and libraries for its for treatment of drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit conten, and suicide, and was deemed to be "unsuited to age group" in the communities challenging it.
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War seem to be enjoying permanent status on the challenged titles list, and one of the most popular young adult series of all time is in the Top 10, too:
Stephenie Meyers' Twilight saga books have been challenged for sexually explicit content, religious viewpoint, vampire violence, and material unsuited to age group. My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, and Carolyn Mackler's The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things also made the list, challenged for sexually explicit content, among other complaints.
The Office of Intellectual Freedom reported a total of 460 challenges to book in school and libraries in the U.S. in 2009. For a .pdf of the full list, click here. They're great reads, all, but don't push them too hard on the young people you work with: In my experience as an educator, there's no better way to get somebody to read a book than having them under the impression that they shouldn't be reading it. I call it The Great Book Banning Backfire. How many of those banned books have you read? ;)
Comments
Some right-wing religious wingnut thinks I shouldn't be reading something and wants it banned from my school library? Best reason I've EVER heard to check out a book! When will these people learn? And what is it that makes some parents forget EVERYTHING about being a teenager as soon as they have some of their own? Give young people a little credit! The more a young person reads, regardless of whether their parents find the content "objectionable" the more educated they are going to be. The more education a person has, the lest likely they are to have unwanted pregnancies, catch sexually transmitted diseases, or sexually abuse another person. Celebrate your freedom to read, indeed! Props to the ALA, and librarians fighting these battles every day, for standing up to these people who have little or no regard for the 1st Amendment, for education itself, or for their own children.
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