{"id":93665,"date":"2012-10-05T13:10:47","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T13:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=9609"},"modified":"2012-10-05T13:10:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T13:10:47","slug":"banned-books-a-depressing-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93665","title":{"rendered":"Banned books, a depressing read"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Banned Books Week, the annual\u00a0American event documenting literary censorship is now in its 30th year.\u00a0This year the American Library Association (ALA) is highlighting just <a title=\"ALA - Challenged and banned books from the 21st century\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/banned\/frequentlychallenged\/challengedclassics\/reasonsbanned\" target=\"_blank\">how many books<\/a> in the classic canon have been championed and challenged simultaneously. It is an astounding read, revealing\u00a0<a title=\"ALA: Frequently challenged classics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/banned\/frequentlychallenged\/challengedclassics\/reasonsbanned\" target=\"_blank\">the often ludicrious reasons<\/a> why classic books were banned, and how some are\u00a0<em>still<\/em>\u00a0being challenged.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/2012\/10\/05\/banned-books-a-depressing-read\/banned-books-week\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9631\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9631\" title=\"The ALA celebrates its 30th anniversary \" src=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/BANNED-BOOKS-WEEK.jpg\" alt=\"The American Library Association\" width=\"500\" height=\"145\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many of the complaints teeter on the edge of absurdity.\u00a0<em>Brave New World<\/em> was removed from Missouri classrooms in 1980 for making promiscuous sex &#8220;look like fun&#8221;;\u00a0<em>The Diary of Anne Frank<\/em>\u00a0was challenged for being &#8220;<a title=\"American Library Association - Ten most farfetched reasons to ban a book\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/banned\/bannedbooksweek\/ideasandresources\/display_ideas\" target=\"_blank\">a real downer<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0in 1983, and <em>The Lord of the Flies<\/em> was contested in 1981 for being &#8220;demoralizing inasmuch as it implies that man is little\u00a0more than an animal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Attempts to censor books continue, <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0was ceremoniously burned in 2001 for being &#8216;satanic&#8217;; <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest <\/em>challenged in 2000 for simply being &#8220;garbage&#8221;, and\u00a0<em>To Kill a Mockingbird <\/em>in 2006<em>\u00a0<\/em>for &#8220;promoting white supremacy&#8221;.\u00a0This is an entirely\u00a0inaccurate representation of the novel, of course, but the racist language used was an accurate representation of the time, and to censor history is akin to denying it altogether.<\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"Banned Books Week - Ten most challenged titles of 2011\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bannedbooksweek.org\/about\" target=\"_blank\">ten most challenged titles<\/a> of 2011 included The<em> Hunger Games<\/em>\u00a0trilogy and <em>My Mom&#8217;s Having A Baby! A Kid&#8217;s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy. <\/em>And the most <a title=\"The American Library Association - Timeline: 30 years of liberating literature\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/banned\/frequentlychallenged\/timeline30-years-liberating-literature\" target=\"_blank\">frequently challenged<\/a>\u00a0literature of the 21st century? <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/And_Tango_Makes_Three\" target=\"_blank\">And Tango Makes Three<\/a>, a\u00a0<a title=\"The American Library Association - Timeline: 30 years of liberating literature\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/banned\/frequentlychallenged\/timeline30-years-liberating-literature\" target=\"_blank\">picture book<\/a> based on a true story of\u00a0<a title=\"Huffington Post - Gay Penguin Book, 'And Tango Makes Three,' tops most objected books list again\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2008\/05\/08\/gay-penguin-book-and-tang_n_100817.html\" target=\"_blank\">two male penguins<\/a> who adopted an egg in a New York Zoo, topping the most challenged list in 2006, 2007, 2008 \u00a0and 2010.<\/p>\n<p><em>Daisy Williams is an Editorial Intern at Index on Censorship<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Daisy Williams:<\/strong> Banned books, a depressing read <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[6695,13919,2294,14656,7403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}