Banned Books Week 2016

Every year, libraries from all over the country celebrate Banned Books Week during the month of September. The idea is to bring awareness to the continuing issue of censorship of books through advocacy, education, and programming.

According to the American Library Association (ALA), between 2000 and 2009, there were 5,099 challenged books reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). These challenges were due, but were not limited, to: sexually explicit material, offensive language, unsuited to age-group, violence, homosexuality, and religious viewpoints.

“Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.”

-American Library Association (ALA), Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q&A, ALA.org

The top ten most frequently challenged books of 2015 are:

1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
   Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
   Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
   Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
   Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
6. The Holy Bible
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
   Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
   Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
    Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).

For more information about the ALA, visit their website.

Defend your right to information and check out some of these banned books in our Discover catalog!