In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Happy Banned Book Week!

Jill

I think this week should be dedicated to Sarah Palin, censorship advocate and vice presidential nominee. One thing I find particularly interesting about the Most Frequently Challenged Books/Authors list is that it’s one of the only “Top 10/Top 100” literary lists I’ve ever read where almost half the authors are women.

What’s your favorite banned book? Personally, I’m a little pissed that Harry Potter kicked the crap out of Heather Has Two Mommies.

20 thoughts on Happy Banned Book Week!

  1. I’m surprised that I’ve read so many of those. I’m also surprised by how frequently Judy Blume appears. I guess I’m just a lover and reader of “filth”. I personally prefer the classics – “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

  2. I’m just proudthat my school consistently has banned books on the curriculum. Let’s see–I know why the caged bird sings, Like Water for Chocolate (okay, its down on the list, but its there), The Bluest Eye, Slaughterhouse 5, and One Flew Over the Coocoo’s nest are all there, and we would have read Huck Finn, but didn’t have time.

  4. The Chocolate War (#2) by the #1 most banned author Robert Cormier. In part, because my city’s school district succeeded in removing it from the library shelves about 10 years ago.

    Judy Blume, too. But in part because one of my all-time letters I ever received was from a vice-president of the board of education in Indiana who responded to my letter criticizing the ban on Forever by Blume as condoning the “how-to” manual for sexual practices before he called me a “Constitutional absolutionist” who would probably want restrictions on gun control. What the hell does gun control have to do with banning books?

  5. I’m most amazed by the complaints about Brave New World. The protesters said the book made sexual promiscuity “look like fun” and challenged ideas of sex, family, religion, and marriage. Showing that they’ve never read the book, because BNW is totally pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-religion, and anti-promiscuity.

  6. You know, the books on that list are just precious. I bet these people would shit their liver if they read The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein. Or most of the other books on my shelf, for that matter.

  7. Chris, this is all too familiar a problem: the notion that a book is “teaching X” if it mentions X, even in the most negative of contexts. A group called Cutting Edge Ministries claims that Professor Snape’s speech about how “I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death” is intended to indoctrinate kids about the joys of using hallucinogenic drugs!

    I’ve also been told that Lois Lowry’s The Giver (#23) “teaches” kids spoiler warning

    that it’s a good thing to euthanize elderly people and defective newborns. Anybody who’s actually read the book knows that the bit where Jonas learns exactly what it means to be “released” or “sent Elsewhere” is one of the most harrowing scenes in the book.

  8. I’ve definitely read more of these than I exepcted–I always forget that apparently some people have nothing better to do than go through the YA section of Barnes and Noble looking for books that talk about sex so they can yell about it (going through the YA section to find awesome YA books to read is of course not only acceptable but a favorite pastime of mine).

    Judy Blume is a personal hero of mine and that is all I’m going to say about that here because otherwise I’m going to start babbling about how great Judy Blume is.

    I haven’t read Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes or Fat Kid Rules the World (though I’ve looked them over on aforementioned perusals of YA sections, sighed wistfully, and thought “when I have free time…”), but I have read The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things, and I have to wonder if there was some anti-fat prejudice going on in the protests against those books (The Earth, My Butt… is pretty fat-positive, though it does also talk about rape, which may have been the trigger…and how sad is it that I find myself hoping people couldn’t handle a book that talks about rape because it would be better than the imaginable alternative of people not being able to handle a book where it’s okay that the main character is fat?)

    The number-one WTF on this list: Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle. WHAT THE FUCK? …oh, apparently there are naked people. Whatever, I was in love with that book as a little kid and I don’t even remember the naked people.

    My favorite on the list? Philip Pullman’s books, probably, though I also adore Speak.

  9. There’s a lot of great books on that list. Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, but I’m going to have to go with Beloved as my favorite favorite on the list.

    Also, I read both while in high school — as assignments.

  11. I’ve also been told that Lois Lowry’s The Giver (#23) “teaches” kids spoiler warning

    that it’s a good thing to euthanize elderly people and defective newborns. Anybody who’s actually read the book knows that the bit where Jonas learns exactly what it means to be “released” or “sent Elsewhere” is one of the most harrowing scenes in the book.

    that was the reason they banned The Giver at my catholic school (whose church was very heavily involved in the pro-life movement). we were in 7th grade, and the day it was banned, my best friend and i asked our parents to buy the book for us and we read it everyday in the class of the specific teacher who requested it be banned when we were done with our classwork. 😀

  12. The most challenged book is about a…baby penguin? I know nothing about The Chocolate War, but I clearly will have to investigate.

    Also, To Kill a Mockingbird is “worse” than the Anarchist’s Cookbook and Private Parts by Howard Stern? What on earth am I missing?

  13. I have to say I’m not suprised at what’s on this list-my high school library didn’t have The Diary of Anne Frank for fucks sake. Why? It was banned. Why? I have no idea.

  14. This list makes me incredibly grateful to my school librarians and teachers – lots of the books on the ‘100 most banned’ were on our book shelves. And other things like ‘Tipping the Velvet’ and ‘The Female Eunuch’.

    But then our head teacher did let some-one skip a school event to go to London Gay Pride’.

  15. I’ve read a lot of these, although I haven’t kept up with the banned YA list in a long time. But my mom is a librarian, very anti-banned books, so she made sure I was reading books off this list.

    I think my favorited book on the more recent banned list is The Giver. It’s just an amazing story. But my all-time favorite book is also “banned,” although that happened in the 1880s – Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

  16. Chris, there are a lot of badly-socialized geniuses (like me) who thought that the society Huxley created was brilliant. The idea that Alphas need not be bothered about Deltas and Epsilons, let alone educated at the same rate, was very appealing. (we’re the same ones who love Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog)

    I found The Giver interesting, but badly done. The world-building fell apart the minute one started poking at it.

  17. Really? Madonna’s “Sex” was lower than Harry Potter or The Giver? Well. I guess we see where someone’s priorities lie.

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  19. Madonna’s “Sex” was lower than Harry Potter or The Giver?

    People go more nutsy fagin over books for kids than books for grownups.

    Mine’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which I re-read every couple of years or so. Don’t you just love people who want to deny that things were/are ever like this?

  20. Well, Harry Potter does prominently feature a homosexual….performing teh magickx.

    I mean….what if you picked up a stick and accio actually worked?! WHAT THEN?!

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