Banned Books
Week
September 29-October 6
What is a banned book?

Books usually are challenged
(and then banned from libraries
or schools) with the best
intentions: to protect others,
frequently children, from
difficult ideas and information.
Why are books banned?

The top three reasons, in order,
for challenging material are that
the material is considered
– to be sexually explicit
– to be contain offensive language
– to be unsuited to age group
Top Ten Most
Challenged
Books
2006
And Tango Makes Three by Justin
Richardson and Peter Parnell



homosexuality
anti-family
unsuited to age
group
Gossip Girls series by Cecily Von
Ziegesar





homosexuality
sexual content
drugs
unsuited to age
group
offensive
language
Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor


sexual content
offensive
language
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big
Round Things by Carolyn Mackler




sexual content
anti-family
offensive
language
unsuited to age
group
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison



sexual content
offensive
language
unsuited to age
group
Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz




occult/Satanism
unsuited to age
group
violence
Insensitivity
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher


homosexuality
offensive
language
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by
Stephen Chbosky




homosexuality
sexually explicit
offensive
language
unsuited to age
group
Beloved by Toni Morrison



offensive
language
sexual content
unsuited to age
group
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier



sexual content
offensive
language
violence
Other Challenged/Banned Books







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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by
Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Outsiders by SE Hinton
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Why should we care?

Banned Books Week (BBW)
celebrates the freedom to choose or
the freedom to express one’s opinion
even if that opinion might be
considered unorthodox or unpopular
and stresses the importance of
ensuring the availability of those
unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints
to all who wish to read them.
First Amendment: Freedom of Speech
Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.,
in Texas v. Johnson, said most eloquently:
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the
First Amendment, it is that the government
may not prohibit the expression of an idea
simply because society finds the idea itself
offensive or disagreeable.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.
First Amendment: Freedom of Speech
Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas (The One Un-American
Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no.
1, Jan. 1953, p. 20)said:
Restriction of free thought and free speech is
the most dangerous of all subversions. It is
the one un-American act that could most
easily defeat us.
Writer’s Notebook

In your writer’s notebook, write a
letter to our principal (Mr. Graham),
our librarian (Ms. Faith), or the editor
of the Anchorage Daily News
explaining what the first amendment
of free speech means to you and
how challenged/banned books might
undermine our freedom of speech. If
you can, mention a banned book that
you have read and enjoyed.