A reader challenge

Not a darn thing here that’s WoW or WAR or game related.  And if you read my other blog you’ve already read this.

Banned Books Week approaches – September 27 – October 4, 2008.  What follows is the list of the 100 books (and in some cases series) that were most frequently challenged here in the United States from 1990-2000.  I’m going to discuss the whole issue after the list – feel free to jump to the bottom to continue.  But for now, I have a challenge for you.

What I’d like you to do, reading this list, is a couple of things.  I’d like you to count how many you’ve read.  If you want to mark your copy, please feel free to do so.  And then… I challenge you pick at least one to read during Banned Books Week, and mention it on your blog (if you have one. And, as these things always go, I ask you to pass it along.  Yes, I’m tagging some people (after the list).  This may fly, it may not.  Let us begin…

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

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I’m a professional librarian.  One of the Big Issues for us is banned books.  Banned Books Week this year is September 27 – October 4, 2008.  Look, if you don’t think YOUR child should read this book, that’s your right and responsibility.  But when you say MY child shouldn’t read it, you’re overstepping your bounds.  It’s tremendously easy to get caught in the “morality trap” – to get falsely trapped into feeling ashamed because you’ve raised your kids to be smart, capable – ADULTS.  Does this mean I believe we should put copies of Playboy in the children’s reading section?  First, don’t be an ass.  That’s an argument of absurdity, absolutely childish and NOT what’s being argued in most cases.  The reality is that there are concepts that are too confusing and overwhelming if the reader is too young.  However, some of those issues are… more twisted in the minds of adults than the kids.

I just gave you the American Library Association’s list of the 100 books more frequently challenged from 1990-2000.  There are some books on there that I despised.  I thought them poorly written and not worth the ink and paper on which they’re printed.  There are at least two that I would be very uncomfortable seeing in the hands of a ten year old – and a couple which in some states would risk crossing certain obscenity in the hands of children laws.  (Stern’s book, for example.)  Nonetheless, provided the book was selected in accordance with a solidly developed collection development plan, I’d fight you tooth and claw if you tried to remove any of them from my library.  “For the children” is terribly abused, and far too often a flat lie people make even to themselves.

What I’ve discovered over the years is that most of the people who wish to ban the book haven’t read it.  They’ve been told of it, but haven’t read it.  There are exceptions, but they are EXCEPTIONS.  So in my own little way I’m trying to change that.  I don’t ask you to like the one you read.  Just… read it.  Think about it.  And realize that pretty much every book on here is considered GOOD by someone. (Sigh, yes, there are a couple written solely to shock.  There’s always the test…)

Challenge goes out to the following:

BigBearButt of the eponymously named site
Ratshag of Need More Rage
Sid, the Serial Ganker
Breana, the Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick
and Dagashai the Renoobed.

(I hadn’t realized how hard it was to stick to ONLY five candidates. There are so many friends of whom I want to see what they say about th is. If you didn’t get picked, never fear – surely your time shall come.)

~ by Kirk on September 18, 2008.