BW 39: Banned Book Week

Celebrate reading!

It is that time of year when we get to celebrate our freedom to read whatever we choose.

American Library Association:  "Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.  Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week.  BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings.  Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.  Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society."

The most frequently challenged books in 2010 were:

1) And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson;

2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie;

3) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

4) Crank by Ellen Hopkins;

5) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins;

6) Lush by Natasha Friend;

7) What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones;

8) Nickel and Dimed  by Barbara Ehrenreich;

9) Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie;

10) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

The most frequently challenged classics are listed below. See the reason why here.

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger 
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck 
4. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker 
5. Ulysses, by James Joyce 
6. Beloved, by Toni Morrison 
7. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding 
8. 1984, by George Orwell 
9. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov 
10. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck 
11. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller 
12. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell 
14. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway 
15. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner 
16. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway 
17. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
18. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
19. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison 
20. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell 
21. Native Son, by Richard Wright 
22. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey 
23. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 
24. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 
25. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London 
26. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin 
27. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren 
28. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien 
29. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclai
30. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence 
31. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess 
32. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin 
33. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote 
34. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie 
35. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron 
36. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
37. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
38. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 
39. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs 
40. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 
41. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence 
42. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer 
43. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
44. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser 
45. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike 

What challenged book will you be reading this week?

**********************************************************

Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url.

If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.