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Read books others would want to ban or burn
By Jeff with a J, Sep 1, 2006 at 12:32 pm.
Filed under Book Lists, Book News, Challenged Books
This month begins with Labor Day, is crowned by September 11th remembrances, and ends with Banned Books Week. It’s a momentous month and a perfect time to celebrate freedom. In a world where riots break out over controversial cartoons in newspapers, where authors have been targeted for murder for publishing their opinions, and where books are stolen from library shelves as a form of self-imposed censorship, we at Cuppa Joad are happy to help champion literary liberty. We’re joining with the American Library Association (ALA) to herald books that have been banned, censored, or challenged for removal from bookshelves.
Throughout September, we will periodically feature posts relating to banned and challenged books—from reviews to news stories to lists of censored books. We hope you will join us in our month-long celebration of free speech.
According to the ALA, It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health topped the list of 2005’s most challenged books. The ALA explains that Robie H. Harris’s book about the changes teens experience during puberty was challenged due to “homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion, and being unsuited to age group.”
The ALA’s list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 contains contemporary titles similar to It’s Perfectly Normal, but it’s also packed with many classics. The following are just a few of our favorites, including the reasons they have been banned in the past:
- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley: This classic has been accused of being anti-family and anti-Christian, and has been challenged due to “language and moral content.” It faced a challenge in California in 1993 on the grounds that it is “centered around negative activity.”
- The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger: This legendary novel depicting a teenager’s nervous breakdown has been repeatedly banned and challenged for reasons such as “profanity,” “sexual references,” and the charge that it “undermines morality.” The novel has also been cited as blasphemous and, as recently as 1983, “the book’s contents” were cited as justification to ban the book.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou: This autobiographical novel dealing with incest has been consistently challenged for containing profanity and pornographic language. The novel was accused by a Texas school of containing “gross evils.”
Return to Cuppa Joad throughout September as we highlight other books like these.
For more information, we recommend reading the ALA’s detailed and enlightening Challenged and Banned Books page.
I do not have any sympathy for the American Library Association. They constantly try to confuse the public with their statements. If To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, were ever censored (which I doubt because I own all of those books and I have read them, and commented on them publicly without any fear of repression), that was wrong, but nor the ALA neither any other institution or individual should arrogate parents’ right to educate and form their children, according to their own principles and believes. Even conservative parents should have that right (and I say this sardonically, because it seems that for the ALA, conservatives have no rights at all!).
What confirmed me in the belief that this group responds to a strong leftist liberal agenda, rather than a valuble zeal for freedom of expression, is their actitude respect to Cuba’s imprissoned intellectuals (most of them accused of possesing forbidden books as the only charge); the ALA’s indifference or luke warm concern toward the plight of the said intellectuals, contrasts vividly with the passion with which they defend their right to place a book (whose contents might arguable confuse or disturb a mind not fully formed yet) in the hands of a child or teenager against the will of his/her parents.
ALA was mostly aloof when the 75 cuban journalists were jailed (while even left Europe’s left wing intellectuals were voicing out their protests) and when they finally passed a resolution in respect to this affair, forced by public criticism, it was drafted in such terms that it seemed that the cause of repression in Cuba is the lack of opportunity of Cuban intellectuals to mix and mingle with the ALA members, due to the embargo. There is not worst lie that a distorted truth. It is true that there is an embargo against Cuba, but up to this day, travel is permitted for intellectual and religious reasons. Besides, traveling to Canada to go the the meeting of librarians is prohibited by the Cuban Communist Party’s embargo (the worst Cuba has been experiencing for 47 years), not by the American embargo. On the other hand, our intellectuals can think with their own heads, without any coaching from the ALA.
I am truly sorry to find out that Alibris has an association with this organization. I will refrain from now on to endorse your business as you endorse an organization that supports the opression in my country of origin. For you to have an idea, my feelings against communism and anyone that supports it, is as strong as jews’ feelings against Hitler and his followers, or blacks’ against slavery. Comunism has brought to my country, destruction from the individual to the environtment, including national patrimony (our works of arts are sold to support Castro’s lavish life style and his exporting of communism to other countries in Latin America and Africa), families, and moral values; Cuba has gone from being one of he most prosperous counries in Latin America in1959 to be one of the poorest. Now we have a dissident movement trying to rescue whatever is left to make the country whole again. Obviously, the ALA and the likes are considered enemies, because in such a precarious situation as Cuba is living, “who is not with me, is against me”.
by TaniaMoreno, 20 Sep 2006 at 7:59 am
[…] Read <b>books</b> others would want to ban or burn […]
by Nonfiction Book Buzz », 21 Sep 2006 at 10:11 pm
[…] Read <b>books</b> others would want to ban or burn […]
by Fiction Book Buzz », 22 Sep 2006 at 12:11 am
Ms. Moreno obviously has the freedom to speak her mind, but her opinions are rather scattered and extreme. For someone to write that “conservatives have no rights at all” is one thing in this era when the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court are all ruled by neo-conservatives. But then to have her state that the ALA “responds to a strong leftist liberal agenda, rather than a valuble zeal for freedom of expression” and that the ALA “supports the opression” [sic] of Cuba is just plain irresponsible and ludicrous. After all, freedom of expression is exactly what the ALA is championing, especially during Banned Books Week. The ALA also provides access to books to millions of people who otherwise might not have access, which indeed is a noble cause. Granted, the plight of Cuba is desperate and sad, but Ms. Moreno’s opinions are so overblown that it is difficult to trust her account of the ALA’s involvement (or lack thereof). As a mother, she has the right to educate her children as she sees fit, but that is no excuse to ban any book. I get so tired of conservatives who assert that they’re the only ones who care about freedom and democracy, and then they turn around and attempt to limit the freedom of others–by challenging books or whatever. And as for me, I applaud Alibris for promoting free speech and Banned Books Week.
by Sadie's dad, 25 Sep 2006 at 5:42 pm