I spotted the button for this over at Kat’s place and I had to rush back here to put up a button for it and make an entry. I’m a very strong believer in freedom of the press and censorship bothers me greatly. The majority of people who try to ban various books do so for their own personal religious reasons which, as you can imagine, really frosts my shorts. I’ve been introduced to a lot of really great authors and stories by insisting on reading a book someone has tried to, or has, banned someplace in this country. Half my motivation for reading the excellent Harry Potter series has been all the uproar it’s generated among the overly religious. Anything that pisses off the religious right that badly can’t be all bad in my mind. More importantly, the idea of banning ideas we don’t like goes against the very concepts America was founded on. If you love your country and value your freedom you will oppose all attempts to ban books and will probably find the Banned Books Project a worthwhile site to visit. Kudos to Kat for bringing it to my attention!
Oh, and in case you’re curious about the what the most commonly challenged books are here’s a link to the The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 19902000.
hi, This is a great site. I went to the list of 100 most challenged books, It’s amazing how many of those I have read. Who would challange Where’s Waldo? In the name of all that is good, there aren’t even any words to be offended by.
Just think Ashley, this list would be even longer if more of the complainants could actually read for themselves, or if the car tape player ate fewer of their audio books. Personally I think anyone who complains shoud have to write a novel first…then, let’s see how they like others telling them it should be banned. “Just Say Know”
(Is that what you were talking about, Nancy?)
Yeah, I know, I know…It’s a list of the Top 100. It wouldn’t be longer, just different, maybe. I shoulda’ just said “Just Say Know” and left it at that. That was pretty clever…sure…I’m not so dumb after all.
1990 to 2000? What about more recently?
According to the ALA, those were the most challenged books of 2004 and….
I’m glad to see Huck Finn is finally off the list. Has that book had an active history or what? It’s also fun to see what the REASON is for the challenges. Some books get challenged not because someone objects to the subject matter, but because they think the author was full of crap.
http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2005/februarya/2004mostchallengedbook.htm
Anyone have stats for 2001-2003?