Posted on 09/30/2009 8:35:37 PM PDT by Saije
The novelist and children's writer Philip Pullman has been showered with awards that include a CBE, a Carnegie Medal and several honorary professorships. This week he notched up a new distinction: he is ranked second in the top 10 books that people have tried to ban across America.
Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, has leapt to the top of the target list of would-be censors in the new rankings issued this week by the American Library Association.
Several schools across America faced requests from parents to remove the book. One challenge at a school in Winchester, Kentucky was made on the grounds that the book's main character drinks wine and eats poppy with her meals...
Three of the top 10 most challenged books in 2008 had gay or lesbian characters, including the single most censored volume, And Tango Makes Three. The fact that it tells the true story of two gay penguins at the Central Park zoo in New York does not appear to have placated opponents...
In the 2008 top 10, two separate volumes were objected to on groups of witchcraft or satanism - Scary Stories and Bless Me, Ultima. In many cases, the censorship bids are lodged by fundamentalist Christian groups that take the Bible's admonition to fight witchcraft literally.
...ALA's banned list in recent years include JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (it includes many "fucks"); John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (for its strong language and political message that riles conservatives); and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker (people have objected to its homosexual theme and offensive language). The left is as capable of censoring as the right. A regular entry is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which anti-racists have tried to ban on grounds that Mark Twain uses the word "nigger".
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
but the #1 banned book is actually...the Bible.
(from public schools)
“(from public schools)”
yes, that’s what I meant to write, that parents think they should have say about what’s in the school library. I think in the local public library the librarians will leave “controversial” books behind the counter and make them available upon request, something like that.
Ya well, Banned in Britain = Michael Savage
Wassup with that you limey blokes?
If we really didn’t want his books in libraries, all we’d have to do is make kids watch “The Golden Compass”. That snoozer will turn kids off to his works in about 15 minutes.
Good grief... the books aren’t being “banned”, these are just examples of citizens who want to participate in the decision as to what books their tax dollars are providing to children in their community. BANNED would be the government making it illegal for anyone to purchase the book themselves, if they wish.
Just because Playboy is legal to own doesn’t mean you therefore have the right to demand that your neighbor buy it for you to borrow.
(and most of the Middle East and Communist countries)
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