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Living on the edge. B anned and Challenged Books Belong in Your Library. What is intellectual freedom?. The right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. American Library Association.
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Living on the edge Banned and Challenged Books Belong in Your Library
What is intellectual freedom? The right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. • American Library Association
…not only to choose what we read, but also to select from a full array of possibilities, which is firmly rooted in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Although we enjoy an increasing quantity and availability of information and reading material, we must remain vigilant to ensure that access to this material is preserved; would-be censors who continue to threaten the freedom to read come from all quarters and all political persuasions. Even if will intentioned, censors try to limit the freedom of others to choose what they read, see, or hear. from Robert P. Doyle’s Books Challenged or Banned The Freedom to Read is…
…remain the primary categories of objections, and most occur in schools and school libraries. Frequently, challenges are motivated by the desire to protect children. While the intent is commendable, this method of protection contains hazards far greater than exposure to the “evil” against which it is leveled. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan (in Texas v. Johnson) said, “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” individuals may restrict what they themselves or their children read, but they must not call on government or public agencies to prevent others from reading or viewing that material. from Robert P. Doyle’s Books Challenged or Banned Sex, profanity, & racism…
The challenges documented in [Robert P. Doyle’s] lists are not brought by people merely expressing a point of view; rather, they represent requests to remove materials from schools or libraries, thus restricting the access to them by others. Even when the eventual outcome allows the book to stay on the library shelves and even when the person is a lone protester, the censorship attempt is real. Challenges are as important to document as actual bannings, in which a book is removed from the shelves of a library/bookstore or from the curriculum in a school. Attempts to censor can lead to voluntary restriction of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy; in these cases, materials may not be published at all or may not be purchased by a bookstore, library, or school district. from Robert P. Doyle’s Books Challenged or Banned Censorship is a real threat…
Places I Never Meant to Be… “In this age of censorship I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced -- writers’ voices, teachers’ voices, students’ voices -- and all because of fear. How many have resorted to self-censorship? How many are saying to themselves, ‘Nope...can’t write about that. Can’t teach that book. Can’t have that book in our collection. Can’t let my student write that editorial in the school paper.’” Judy Blume
FULL DISCLOSURE • CENSORSHIPIS NOT ACCEPTABLE • SELECTION (USING CRITERIA TO CHOSE RESOURCES) IS ACCEPTABLE • SET ASIDE YOUR PERSONAL BELIEFS • PARENTS HAVE A RIGHT TO CENSOR WHAT THEIR CHILD READS…NOT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN READ • WARNING: THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS.
MY WISH FOR EACH OF YOU… • INCREASE AWARENESS ABOUT BANNED/CHALLENGED BOOKS • INSPIRE YOU TO ADD AT LEAST ONE “EDGY TITLE” TO YOUR COLLECTION • RECRUIT INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM FIGHTERS TO ACTIVELY DEFEND YOUR PATRONS’ RIGHT TO READ BY BLOCKING CENSORSHIP FROM ANY SOURCE • PUT DOWN THE BLACK SHARPIE OF CENSORSHIPAND TAKE OUT YOUR HIGHLIGHTER OF SHARING IDEAS
THE CLASSICS RACISM SEXUAL CONTENT DEPICTS MORMANS AS MURDEROUS/INTOLERANT ENCOURAGES SCHOOL VIOLENCE OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE SEXUAL CONTENT & INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE GLORIFIES DRINKING, CURSING, & PREMARITAL SEX COVER ART OF BARE CHESTED WOMAN SEXUAL CONTENT
Arnold Spirit, known as Junior, is a budding cartoonist who has grown up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He decides to take his future into his own hands by leaving his troubled school on “the rez” to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. • CHALLENGED FOR: • MASTERBATION • EXPLICIT SEXUAL REFERENCES • ENCOURAGING PORNOGRAPHY • RACISM • RELIGIOUS IRREVERENCE • VULGAR LANGUAGE (INCLUDING F-WORD & N-WORD) CHALLENGED 2010, 2011, 2012
CHALLENGED AS: • SOFT-PORNOGRAPHY • GLORIFIES DRINKING, CURSING, AND PREMARITAL SEX • TEACHES PRINCIPLES CONTRATY TO THE BIBLE A traumatic event in the summer before her freshman year of high school has a devastating effect on fourteen-year-old Melinda's first year of high school CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
Four teens recount the course of their friendship at one of New York City's most prestigious public high schools, from their horrified witness to the September 11 attacks to their efforts to juggle demanding schedules and social pressures. • CHALLENGED FOR: • FOUL LANGUAGE AND CUSSING • ADOLESCENT SEX • DRINKING • DRUG USE • SEXUAL ORIENTATION CHALLENGED 2010
As their lives take them in different directions, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget discover many more things about themselves and the importance of their relationship with each other. • CHALLENGED FOR: • SOME OF THE CHARACTERS ARE SEXUALLY ACTIVE AND ALCOHOL IS PART OF THEIR RECREATION CHALLENGED 2010
CHALLENGED FOR: • EXPLICIT HOMOSEXUAL AND HETROSEXUAL SITUATIONS • PROFANITY • UNDERAGE DRINKING AND SMOKING • EXTREME MORAL SHORTCOMINGS • CHILD MOLESTERS • GRAPHIC PEDOPHILE SITUATIONS • TOTAL LACK OF NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES Augusten Burroughs describes his bizarre coming-of-age years after his adoption by his mother's psychiatrist, during which he witnessed such misadventures as a fake suicide attempt and front-lawn family/patient sleepovers. CHALLENGED 2010
Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers of a farm family in Holcomb, Kansas. • CHALLENGED AS: • TOO VIOLENT FOR A YOUNG AUDIENCE CHALLENGED 2011
Brilliant and young, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a product of over a hundred years of genetic experiments to develop a perfect general, is drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training to see if he has what it takes to play a role in developing a secure defense against the next attack of a hostile alien race known as buggers. • CHALLENGED AS: • PORNOGRAPHIC CHALLENGED 2011, 2012
Fledgling vampire Zoey Redbird faces a crisis as human teenagers are becoming victims of a wave of murders and the House of Night becomes the prime suspect in the crimes. • CHALLENGED AS: • CAUSES KIDS TO THINK EVEN MORE OF THINGS SEXUAL CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
CHALLENGED AS: • ANTI-FAMILY • DRUGS • OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE • SEXUALLY EXPLICIT • SUICIDE • NUDITY • HOMOSEXUALITY • BESTIALITY • RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT Charlie’s letters to an anonymous person detail his experiences during his freshman year in high school and his adventures as an unpopular, unconventional thinker. CHALLENGED 2010, 2011, 2012
High school seniors Sara and Tobey attempt to figure out what is important in life as they try to balance their preparations for their futures with their enjoyment of the present. • CHALLENGED FOR: • EXPLICIT CONTENT CHALLENGED 2012
CHALLENGED FOR: • VIOLENCE • ANTI-ETHNIC • ANTI-FAMILY • OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE • SEXUALLY EXPLICIT • OCCULT/SATANIC KatnissEverdeen lives in a post-apocalyptic nation where an annual televised competition forces one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts to battle to the death. CHALLENGED 2010
High school senior Eric Calhoune, a formerly fat kid, becomes concerned when Sarah, who has horrible burn scars from a childhood accident, suddenly stops talking and is committed to a psych ward. • CHALLENGED AS: • PORNOGRAPHY • PERVASIVELY VULGAR LANGUAGE CHALLENGED 2010
CHALLENGED AS: • ECONOMIC FALLACIES/SOCIALIST IDEAS • ADVOCATING ILLICIT DRUG USE • BELITTLING CHRISTIANS • PROFANE • FADDISH • HAVING NO MORAL VALUE • OBSCENE In an attempt to understand the lives of Americans earning near-minimum wages, Barbara Ehrenreich works as a waitress in Florida, a cleaning woman in Maine, and a sales clerk in Minnesota. CHALLENGED 2010, 2011, 2012
Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center attacks, searches the five boroughs of New York City for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind.. • CHALLENGED FOR: • PROFANITY • SEX • VIOLENCE CHALLENGED 2010
Obsessed with people’s last words, sixteen-year-old Miles "Pudge" Halter‘s first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after an accident. • CHALLENGED FOR: • INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE • SEXUALLY EXPLICIT • PORNOGRAPHIC CHALLENGED 2011, 2012
CHALLENGED FOR: • DRUG AND WEAPON SMUGGLING AND GANG CIOLENCE THAT IS TOO MUCH FOR ANY CHILD TO HAVE ACCESS AT THAT AGE While working with the Australian Secret Service on a dangerous mission, teenaged spy Alex Rider uncovers information about his parents. CHALLENGED 2010
As a school assignment, a thirteen-year-old boy writes an alphabiography--life from A to Z--and explores issues of friendship, family, school, and the challenges of being a gay teenager. • CHALLENGED AS: • OBJECTIONABLE CHALLENGED 2012
As she reads the journal left by her best friend, who committed suicide, Caitlin struggles with powerful feelings of loss, sadness, and guilt, but friends and a first love help her to cope with her negative emotions. • CHALLENGED AS: • RIDDLED WITH OBSCENITIES CHALLENGED 2011
Mara's niece, who is only one-year-younger, moves in bringing conflict between the two teenagers because of their opposite personalities. • CHALLENGED AS: • ON THE VERGE OF PORNOGRAPHY CHALLENGED 2010
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. • CHALLENGED FOR: • INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE • GRUESOME SCENES CHALLENGED 2012
Chronicles, in instant message format, the day-to-day experiences, feelings, and plans of three friends, Zoe, Maddie, and Angela, as they begin tenth grade. • CHALLENGED FOR: • GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT • FOUL LANGUAGE • SEXUAL CONTENT CHALLENGED 2012
CHALLENGED AS: • SENSATIONALIZES: • SEXUAL PROMISCUITY • QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE • DRUNKENNESS • LYING TO PARENTS • A LACK OF REMORSE BY THE CHARACTERS While on vacation in California, sixteen-year-old best friends Anna and Frankie conspire to find a boy for Anna's first kiss, but Anna harbors a painful secret that threatens their lighthearted plan and their friendship. CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with just one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special, no matter what. • CHALLENGED FOR: • LINE READING: “SOME FAMILIES HAVE TWO MOMS OR TWO DADS.” CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
Irrepressible friends George and Harold from the Captain Underpants stories create a new comic book superhero, Super Diaper Baby. • CHALLENGED FOR: • CONTAINING THE PHRASE “POO POO HEAD” CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
Three young children experience the joys and challenges of being raised by two mothers • CHALLENGED FOR: • SUITABILITY OF STORY (HOMOSEXUALITY) CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
Torey Adams, a high school junior with a seemingly perfect life, struggles with doubts and questions surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the class outcast named Christopher Creed. • CHALLENGED FOR: • SEX • SUICIDE • PROFANITY CHALLENGED 2010, 2012
Sixteen-year-old Precious Jones, an abused young African American girl living in Harlem who was raped and left pregnant by her father, finds hope and redemption with the help of teacher. • CHALLENGED FOR: • INCEST/RAPE • TEENAGE PREGNANCY • HIV/AIDS CHALLENGED 2010, 2011
MarjaneSatrapi shares the story of her life in Tehran, Iran, where she lived from ages six to fourteen while the country came under control of the Islamic regime. • CHALLENGED FOR: • GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS • GRAPHIC LANGUAGE • MATURE CONTENT CHALLENGED 2012
The hardships, dramas, and joys of seventh and eighth grade are presented in a collection of tales, illustrated by an array of graphic novelists, including Daniel Clowes and Ariel Schrag. • CHALLENGED FOR: • OBJECTIONABLE SEXUAL AND LANGUAGE REFERENCES CHALLENGED 2011
NicSheff details his immersion in a world of hardcore drugs, revealing the mental and physical depths of addiction, and the violent relapse one summer in California that forever changed his life, leading him down the road to recovery. • CHALLENGED FOR: • DEPICTIONS OF DRUG USAGE AND A HOMOSEXUAL ORGY CHALLENGED 2011
Intelligent and observant, fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana for the prestigious Ault School Prep School in Massachusetts only to discover a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own shorthand. • CHALLENGED AS: • TOO MATURE FOR FRESHMAN READERS CHALLENGED 2012
Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born. • CHALLENGED FOR: • SEXUAL CONTENT CHALLENGED 2010
NOTE: 9/12 PROJECT CALLED FOR THE BANNING OF 3 BOOKS DEALING WITH TEENAGE SEXUALITY AND ISSUES OF HOMOSEXUALITY: LOVE AND SEX: TEN STORIES OF TRUTH THE FULL SPECTRUM: A NEW GENERATION OF WRITING ABOUT GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, QUESTIONING, AND OTHER IDENTITIES • CHALLENGED FOR: • TOO GRAPHIC AND OBSCENE An anthology of stories by gay youth reveal their fears and joyous moments as they attempt to survive and thrive in a homophobic society. CHALLENGED 2010
Telling his faithful dog to make sure nobody touches his clothes but him, a cowboy jumps into a New Mexico river for a bath, not realizing just how much the scrubbing will change his scent. • CHALLENGED FOR: • IMAGES OF COWBOY TAKING A BATH CHALLENGED 2012
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him. • CHALLENGED AS: • INAPPROPRIATE READING ASSIGNMENT FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS CHALLENGED 2012
CHALLENGED FOR: • EXPLICITLY DETAILING THE LIVES AND LOVES OF PRIVILEGED ADOLESCENT GIRLS (DRUGS, SEXUALLY EXPLICITY, & OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) Follows of the lives of Blair, Serena, and their wealthy Manhattan friends during the summer following high school graduation. CHALLENGED 2011
As the child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric, artist mother, Jeannette Walls discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities. • CHALLENGED FOR: • EXPLICIT LANGUAGE • CHILD MOLESTATION • ADOLESCENT SEXUAL EXPLOITS • VIOLENCE CHALLENGED 2011, 2012
