Pajiba

The only thing I can think of with The Hunger Games is the scene where Katniss has Peeta strip so that she can treat his wounds...but I really don't see that as sexually explicit at all.

Nickel and Dimed is one of the 10 most objectionable books? Who maintains this list? Wal-Mart?

All this list does is make me want to check out these books (except Twilight)

So this list is fiction and non-fiction? I feel like banning a book like "Nickel & Dimed..." is like trying to whitewash reality. It ain't always pretty out there, but that's life.

Ugh. Godtopus forbid anyone read any of these books and learn to think for themselves.

The Hobbit was once on the banned list for being "subversive."

I almost got my teenaged butt suspended from 8th grade for doing a book report. The book? Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut. The teacher and the school felt that even though it was freely available in the public library, it shouldn't be seen by impressionable teeners.

Ho, terrible, i couldn't have believed it was possible. There is nothing outrageous in this list of book, what's the problem ? Strange world.
(sorry for my english...)

I'm sort of proud that one of my absolute favorite books is on this list. It seems funny also that it's the only book left on this list that was published before 2000. In a way that's good news; the book-burners are focusing on the publicity of the modern releases and might finally be letting the classics alone.

And just for the record to the close-minded, moronic censors: try reading Brave New World in its entirety. Also try using your brain to process the words. You might find that one interpretation of it actually endorses some of the ideals that you superficially believe it assails.

I read this article to my husband, and he said "The top ten BAND books. That seems like a pretty narrow genre."
I said, "No honey, banned like forbidden."
He was horrified; he could not conceive of people requesting a book to be removed from the library. By God I do love that man.

Did I accidentally buy the censored version of The Hunger Games? That is really upsetting. I did buy it at WalMart while I was on vacation in the Outer Banks, I guess since Walmart censors all of the music they sell, it would make sense that they would do the same to the books.
Shit. Now I am going to have to go see if I can find the raunchy version.

What? No Huck Finn?

I live in a town with a recognized Native American tribe. We even have an Indian Education Office headed by a woman who offers cultural lectures to teachers and study groups for children in the tribe. They banded together in the fall to get The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian removed from the high school curriculum because of one passage. Some racist kid is taunting the books titular character for being the offspring of a black person and a buffalo (in far more colorful language). This particular tribe was vilified in the first Weird NJ book with a similar twisted and racist history of their people. I even supported the ban when the teachers wouldn't accept the condition of the Indian Education Office providing an alternate take on the subject of racism.

The head of the English Department was blindsided by the effort as that book is taught nationwide without incident. Who could object when the end of the book makes a clear case against racism?

I guess she was off on that one.

Fair points, Slash and Lee, on the verbiae. But the objections to these books were made by people that I think it's safe to assume want them banned. That alone is enough to raise my ire.

Sherman Alexie's Diary of a Part Time Indian is a laugh-out loud-funny, poignant, sad, and triumphant, an amazing book.

And Barbara Ehrenreich, really? I mean what I remember about that book was that maid services don't necessarily actually 'clean' your house...and that minimum wage jobs are shitty, but really, banned?

Catcher in the Rye should be banned for being overrated. I hate this book so much!

Lee, if you mean banned in the entire country, you're probably right, though I wouldn't buy the Anarchist Cookbook in any way that creates a record. However, many of these titles ARE banned in individual locations.

After hearing about Nickel and Dimed the other day I used the Google to magically look up why. In one location it was because of the following two sentences... 'But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse. The living man, the wine guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist is never once mentioned.' in reference to a revival she attended. Oh noes! She used somewhat harsher terms to um, accurately describe Jesus. That couple is also going after Water for Elephants.

Another location was a HS in PA that used the book in their AP English class. The complaint was that the book promotes socialism and is also anti-christian. The complainer was a single man and not a parent, but as a taxpayer felt it was his duty.

In some regards I feel like I shouldn't give a shit what some non-local high school or library chooses to do, but I also feel that it's a slippery slope in what is often hoped to be accomplished by this type of ideological banning, and I feel quite uncomfortable if generations of students learn for example that the War of Northern Aggression was never about slavery.

I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library. Line up to the mind cemetary now. What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving. They don't got to burn the books they just remove them. While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells. Rally 'round the family, pocket full of shells.

I'm still amazed Go Ask Alice isn't banned. We used to pass it around and hide it in our closets. It's the *true* diary of a drug addicted teen who slides quickly into whoredom and homelessness. *Supposedly* her parents found her diary after she died of an overdose.