This column has discussed book after book that has been banned and/or challenged for various reasons. Most incidents are the result of ignorance and intolerance, others may even be innocently well-intentioned; but what happens when entire libraries are threatened in order to serve the arrogant hatred of racism from ignorant […]
William Golding’s debut novel follows a group of British schoolboys whose plane crashes on the shore of an uninhabited island. As well intentioned their attempt to cope with the situation and govern themselves may have been they instead regress to primal instincts and the mentality of humanity’s earliest hunter societies. […]
Another Banned Books Week has come and gone here in the “Land of the Free”. It comes with a mix of emotions for those at the center of the stand against censorship because this is an issue that exists 365 days a year, not just 7. While it is true […]
Texas-born Tomás Rivera’s coming-of-age story of a Mexican boy’s life in a migrant family in the 1940s and 1950s, with its themes of family life and tensions, is apparently too much for the parents of a Clarke County seventh-grader and they want the book banned. They demanded that the Clarke […]
Most of us aren’t surprised by “Fifty Shades of Grey” being the fourth most-challenged book of 2012, but would you expect a children’s book to make number one? Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” has been repeatedly banned or challenged due to concerns over offensive language and charges of being “unsuited for […]
The United States’ third-largest school district, Chicago Public Schools, denies that it banned the book, saying that it “only removed copies from classrooms.” They can euphemize it any way they like, but it’s still censorship. Labeling the graphic novel as “inappropriate,” CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett also ordered mandatory training for any […]
Literature marks the times. Whether an epic historical fiction or a dime store yarn, a novel reflects the time in which it is published as much as it does the period it is set in. The intricacy and subject matter of the literature we enjoy also evolves with us as […]
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is an autobiographical memoir of Walls’ and her siblings’ unconventional and poverty-stricken upbringing at the hands of deeply dysfunctional parents. The book, published in 2005, pulls on the heartstrings of readers with its resonating and poignant topics; but the parents of a student at […]
Stephen King is one of the most recognizable names in literature. His horror-filled library of tales like Carrie and The Shining are classics on bookshelves and on the silver screen. His intense dramas exploring the human condition, such as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, are likewise celebrated. But […]
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the American Library Association’s Banned Book Week. 30 years of tracking, cataloging, documenting, and reporting attempts to remove books from the shelves of schools, libraries, and bookstores forever. 30 years. The truth of the matter is that censorship has existed for as long as […]
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