Notes in the Margin Weblog

Twitter: Banned Books’ New Best Friend – NYTimes.com:

Perhaps you’ve heard: It’s Banned Books Week, and across the country, libraries, bookstores, teachers and countless readers are celebrating ‘the freedom to read.’

For an event like this, it never hurts to have a cause célèbre, and this year, organizers needn’t have gone very far in search of one. They just had to turn to Twitter, where people have been rallying behind the young-adult author Laurie Halse Anderson, whose best-selling 1999 novel, ‘Speak,’ has found itself at the center of a heated censorship debate.

Two of the censorship attempts mentioned in this blog entry, including the attack on Speak, originated in my own current home state of Missouri.

I gotta get outa here.

Banned Books Week 2010: Which books drew the most fire last year? – CSMonitor.com:

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the past year’s book-banning efforts:

In total, there were 460 challenges reported to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom in 2009, 410 of them books. The rest are videos, speeches, magazines, and other forms of media. The organization estimates that only 1 out of every 5 or 6 challenges is actually reported, so the actual number of challenges is probably much larger than 460.

More than half of the challenges came from the states of Pennsylvania and Texas.

Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2009

Out of 460 challenges as reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom

1. “TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle

Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs

2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Reasons: Homosexuality

3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide

4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee

Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult

Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence

8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier

Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group