to read all one hundred books on ala's frequently challenged book list

a library display of banned books because it might encourage students to read them. Display of Banned Books Removed from Harrisonburg High School
I’m not sure what to say about this one.

According to this article on the CBC in regards to the ALA most banned books list.

Be Cool Sodapop, said Veronica Mars and since I got the joke I had to read this book again. This book is both dated and timeless and I think Ponyboy is authentic and sweet.

Challenged possibly because of the murder, the fighting, cigarette smoking and juvenile deliquency. Also probably challenged because of the sympathetic depiction of lower class juvenile deliquent characters, but that is enough Marx for me. Back to Mars.

I forgot I read this one last year when a family member had some sex ed questions. Ooops.

from Linda Harvey of Mission America (pro-family, anti-homosexual) which I have a lot of problems with, but feel it is only fair to share.

(And it’s not true that libraries don’t collect these anti-homosexuality tracts: they collect some, in parallel to user requests and then play tricks with Dewey. They are useful to researchers and should be kept.)

if you are following what is happening in Fayetteville, AR.

Here are more books to read:

1. “Doing It” by Melvin Burgess (excellent and funny)
2. “Choke” by Chuck Palahniuk
3. “Between Lovers” by Eric Jerome Dickey
4. “Cheaters” by Eric Jerome Dickey
5. “The Other Woman” by Eric Jerome Dickey
6. “The Homo Handbook—Getting in Touch With Your Inner Homo” by Judy Carter
7. “Gays/justice: a study of ethics, society, and law” by Richard D. Mohr
8. “GLBTQ: the survival guide for queer and questioning teens” by Kelly Huege
9. “Rainbow High” by Alex Sanchez (this is a great book)
10. “Rainbow Boys” by Alex Sanchez
11. “Forever” by Judy Blume
12. “Kissing Kate” by Lauren Myracle
13. “Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son” by Phyllis Burke
14. “Eight Seconds” by Jean Ferris
15. “Annie on My Mind” by Nancy Garden
16. “Baby Be-Bop” by Francesca Lia Block
17. “Leave Myself Behind” by Bart Yates
18. “Always Running: La Vida Loca,: Gang Days in L.A.” by Luis J. Rodriguez
19. “Beloved” by Toni Morrison
20. “Bless me, Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya
21. “Breaking Boxes” by A.M. Jenkins
22. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (also another great book)
23. “Deal With It! A whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a Gurl” by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, Rebecca Odes
24. “Druids” by Morgan Llywelyn
25. “Fade” by Robert Cormier
26. “Fair Game” by Erika Tamar
27. “Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers
28. “Fools Crow” by James Welch
29. “Girl Goddess #9: Nine Stories” by Francesca Lia Block
30. “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez
31. “I was a Teenage Fairy” by Francesca Lia Block
32. “Less Than Zero” by Bret Easton Ellis
33. “Like Water For Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments With Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies” by Laura Esquivel
34. “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
35. “Lucky” by Alice Sebold
36. “My Father’s Scar” by Michael Cart
37. “My Heartbeat” by Garret Freymann-Weyr
38. “One Hot Second: Stories About Desire” edited by Cathy Young
39. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
40. “Paula” by Isabel Allende
41. “Peter” by Kate Walker
42. “Push: A Novel” by Sapphire
43. “Ragtime” by E.L. Doctorow
44. “Rats Saw God” by Rob Thomas
45. “Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson
46. “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison
47. “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
48. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
49. “The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett
50. “The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold” by Francesca Lia Block
51. “Tenderness” by Robert Cormier

Some of the books on this list are among the 10 most challenged books of 2004, according to the American Library Association

If you are in academia or a librarian or teacher, you may be interested in this article, http://insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/23/lombardi, a response to the Reading at Risk Survey (PDF document). It fits with the Defense of Rubbish article that I posted earlier.

In this book, five high school seniors plot to kidnap their high school English teacher who is an unrelenting perfectionist. Mr Griffin thinks he is preparing them for college, while the students are too accustomed to being babied and coddled to accept his standards. The students decide to kidnap him with the intention of scaring him into submission but the plot goes south when the teacher dies from his untreated angina. Throw in a charming sociopath, his four needy followers, a pregnant wife who is convinced that her husband has not left her, a busybody, a car that just won’t vanish, and the plan dissolves into mayhem.

Stylistically this is an ok mystery and a good introduction to the genre for young adult readers. The unravelling of the plot relies on coincidence. The characters make the book. None of the characters are perfect but only one is truly evil (Mark) while only one is saintly good (the pregnant wife). Even Mr Griffin who cannot unbend enough to give encouragement, only criticism, is not shown as perfect. And even that character, in the scene with his wife, is shown as complex, not just a harsh authoritarian.

The most recent challenge I can find on the ‘net for this book was in the report from the Texas division of the ACLU, http://www.aclutx.org/pubed/bannedbooks/99banned.htm, where the book was challenged for sex and violence. There was no sex in this book, but it is violent, though most of the violence takes place off stage. The teacher is kicked and hit, but he is not stabbed, shot or strangled. His death would have been miserable, painful, and lonely, and one of the sympathetic characters in the book, Susan, acknowledges that when she and Dave go to release the teacher. There is one scene with drug use.

What did I get out of this book? That parents aren’t watching their kids, that kids are alienated by persons in authority, that kids need attention and affection and if they are not getting it from their parents, they will get this need met from less than scrupulous friends. As one of the senior’s parents says near the end of the book, “All you have to do is open the paper or pick up a magazine, and you see a bunch of messed up kids in trouble. It makes you wonder where the parents are while all that’s going on.”

This essay by Peter Dickinson was posted to the Yalsa-Bk listserv and I thought some people here would be interested in it. Very short.

Has an extensive list of banned books and some of them need more information or reviews. If you have read some of these books you may want to contribute a review or additional information.