National Coalition Against Censorship 2013 “Banned Books Library” Catalog 1 www.ncac.org | @ncacensorhip on Twitter | Facebook.com/ncacorg Sherman Alexie The book was not removed, though the district subsequently had a discussion about Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian informing parents about reading lists. In 2008, school officials in Crook County, OR, removed the book from ninth grade English classes at Crook County High School after one parent complained about a Maya Angelou passage that discussed masturbation. In April 2010, the Stockton (MO) School I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings District voted to ban the book after a parent protested its use in high school English In 1983 four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for the classes. The District said it voted to ban the book due to violence, language and book's rejection because it preaches "bitterness and hatred against whites." In 1995 some sexual content. removed from the curriculum pending content review at the Gilbert Unified School in AZ. Complaining parents said the book did not represent "traditional values." Dorothy Allison Removed, in 1998, from the ninth grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Bastard Out of Carolina MD after parents complained that the book "portrays white people as being Three years ago, an English teacher in Fremont, CA proposed this modern classic as horrible, nasty, stupid people" and that it is too sexually explicit. Removed in 2006 part of her Advanced Placement English reading list. The title drew the as required reading in Annapolis, MD freshman English curriculum because of the consternation of the school board, which picked out the book and banned it from book's rape scenes and other mature content. Challenged in 2009 in Newman- being adopted. They also enacted a policy to block the teacher from resubmitting Crows Landing School District, CA on a required reading list presented by the the book, stating she had to wait two years to resubmit a rejected text. The Orestimba English Department. A trustee questioned the qualifications of following year, she submitted Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer prize-winning play Angels in Orestimba staff to teach a novel depicting African-American culture. America, which was also picked out for rejection. Finally, this year she was able to resubmit Bastard and pass it through the curriculum committee. Unfortunately, Anonymous when it got to the school board, it again was singled out for rejection, despite Go Ask Alice objections from educators, administrators and parents who felt the book should be First removed from school libraries in 1974 for objectionable language and explicit taught. sexual scenes. Challenged yearly, sometimes restricted to high school students and not available to younger students, for its explicit references to drugs and sex. Julia Alvarez How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Margaret Atwood Challenged, in 2002, along with seventeen other titles in the Fairfax County, VA Handmaid's Tale elementary and secondary school libraries, by a group called Parents Against Bad Challenged first in California in 1990 and then in Iowa in 1992 for "profanity, lurid Books in Schools because it contains "profanity and descriptions of drug abuse. passages about sex, statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the Sexually explicit conduct and torture." Removed, in 2007, from Johnston County, NC disabled." In 2006, in Judson school district, Texas, the superintendent banned the school libraries after a parent challenged its sexual content and profane language. book because of explicit sex and offensiveness to Christians. The School Board overruled the ban. M.T. Anderson Feed James Baldwin Selected for supplemental reading in Greene County, VA, a formal challenge was Go Tell It On The Mountain lodged by a parent of a middle school student in response to profanity in the book. Challenged as required reading in the Hudson Falls, NY schools (1994) because the It should be noted – and fortunately it was noted by educators and the school book has recurring themes of rape, masturbation, violence, and degrading board – that the plot centers around the breakdown in language and treatment of women. Challenged as a ninth-grade summer reading option in Prince communication that occurs when society adopts and implants “feeds” into all our William County, VA (1988) because the book is "rife with profanity and explicit sex." brains, ushering advertising and other spammy content directly into our psyche. National Coalition Against Censorship 2013 “Banned Books Library” Catalog 2 www.ncac.org | @ncacensorhip on Twitter | Facebook.com/ncacorg Judy Blume Violence, offensive language and sexual situations are the themes that recur in the Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, Deeny, Then Again Maybe I Won't, challenges to Cormier's books from 1981 to the present day. His books have been Forever, Places I Never Meant To Be removed from reading lists and from libraries. Blume's books have been consistently challenged since 1980 for their sexual content, their use of "four-letter words," their talk of masturbation, of birth control, Chris Crutcher of drinking whiskey and vodka, and of disobedience to their parents. Are You There Whale Talk God has also been challenged for its discussion of "anti-Christian" behavior. Whale Talk, a young adult novel was removed from library shelves and a district- wide school reading list in Athens, Alabama, despite the Superintendent of Schools’ Anthony Burgess recommendation that it remain. Opponents of the book claimed it contained Clockwork Orange offensive language. Also banned from a district-wide reading list in Georgetown, In 1973 a bookseller in Orem, UT was arrested for selling the novel. Charges were South Carolina. later dropped, but the bookseller was forced to close the store and relocate to another city. Removed from Aurora, CO high school (1976) and from high school Charles Darwin classrooms in Westport, MA (1977) because of "objectionable" language. Removed The Origin of Species from two Anniston, AL High school libraries (1982), but later reinstated on a Banned from Trinity College, Cambridge, England in 1859. In 1925 the state of restricted basis. Tennessee passed a law prohibiting teachers from teaching the theory of evolution in state supported schools. Banned in Yugoslavia in 1935. Banned in Greece in 1937. William S. Burroughs In the 1980s both Louisiana and Arkansas boards of education required the Naked Lunch teaching of creationism along with evolution. The US Supreme Court ruled this Found obscene in Boston by the MA Superior Court (1965). The finding was requirement was unconstitutional. reversed by the State Supreme Court the following year. Barbara Ehrenreich John Cleland Nickel and Dimed Fanny Hill UPDATE 2012**Ranked by the American Library Association as one of the top 10 In 1749 the author was imprisoned in Britain for "corrupting the King's subjects". challenged books of 2010, the book was challenged by a parent in the 2010 Easton, Banned in Massachusetts in 1821 and in New Jersey in 1963 as obscene. Burned in Pennsylvania school district because it "promoted economic fallacies and socialist Japan and England in 1965. ideas, as well as advocating the use of illegal drugs and belittling Christians." Once again, this book came under challenge in Easton in 2012 and once again it was not Suzanne Collins removed. Hunger Games William Faulkner Ranked by the American Library Association as one of the top 10 challenged books of 2010, the book was challenged in New Hampshire where a parent asked the As I Lay Dying Goffstown School Board to remove the book from her daughter's class, claiming As I Lay Dying has been challenged frequently. Banned in the Graves County School that it gave her 11-year-old nightmares and could numb other students to the District in Mayfield, KY (1986) because it contains "offensive and obscene passages effects of violence. referring to abortion and use[s] God's name in vain." The decision was reversed a week later after intense pressure from the ACLU and considerable negative Robert Cormier publicity. Other challenges have cited that the book includes "a segment about masturbation," profanity, coarse dialect, and that it questions the existence of God. The Chocolate War, I am the Cheese, and First Death In general these challenges have been rejected or reversed. National Coalition Against Censorship 2013 “Banned Books Library” Catalog 3 www.ncac.org | @ncacensorhip on Twitter | Facebook.com/ncacorg Anne Frank John Green The Diary of a Young Girl Looking for Alaska In 1982 the book was challenged in schools in Wise County, Virginia as having This modern-day boarding school narrative has been compared to A Separate Peace sexually offensive passages. Alabama State Textbook Committee, in 1983, called the and Catcher in the Rye. Students had voted to read the book as their end-of-term book "a real downer." In 2010 the book was again challenged in the Culpeper fun read in a high school in Sumner County, TN. A parent, concerned over profanity, County schools, Virginia because of the sexual material and homosexual themes. drinking and a brief and inexplicitly described oral sex scene in the book, took their International attention came to the school district and the superintendent said that concerns directly to higher ups in the board of education. Within the span of four the book would remain part of English classes. days and without any formal proceedings, the book was pulled from all county schools. Allen Ginsberg Howl Robie Harris Seized by US Customs officials in San Francisco in 1957 because it contains It’s Perfectly Normal "homosexual acts." A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Challenged, restricted, removed, relocated in many US schools and libraries for Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem's new domestic publisher.