Wednesday, September 28, 2005
American Library Association: Banned Books Week
The American Library Association's Banned Books Week celebrates the Freedom to Read. Observed during the last week of September each year since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.
Drop in at the ALA Banned Books Week web page where you can order buttons, posters, bookmarks, and T-shirts to let 'em know where you stand on censorship.
Here's the ALA's list of the 25 most often challenged books (you can read the whole 100 on the ALA Banned Book Week website):
- Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
- Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
- Forever by Judy Blume
- Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
- Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
- Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
- My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
- Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
- A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Sex by Madonna
- Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
- The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
- Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
- In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
Here's a radical idea: take a banned book to bed with you tonight.