Transcript Banned Books PowerPoint

Banned Books Week
To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list.
John Aikin
Some Definitions
• A challenge is an attempt to remove or
restrict materials, based upon the
objections of a person or group
• A banning is the removal of those
materials
• A book/film/song/website is censored
when changes are made that are not in
accordance with the original intent of the
author/artist/creator.
Most Frequently Challenged Books
2010
#10 – Twilight
• Religious viewpoint
• Violence
#9 – Revolutionary Voices:
a Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology
• Homosexuality
• Sexually explicit
• Unsuited to age group
#8 – Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting y in America
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Drugs
Inaccurate
Offensive language
Political viewpoint
Religious viewpoint
#7 – What My Mother Doesn’t Know
• Sexism
• Sexually explicit
• Unsuited for age group
#6 – Lush
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Drugs
Offensive language
Sexually explicit
Unsuited to age group
#5 – The Hunger Games
• sexually explicit
• Violence
• Unsuited to age group
#4 – Crank
• Drugs
• Explicit language
• Offensive language
#3 – Brave New World
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offensive language
sexually explicit
Insensitivity
racism
#2 – Absolutely True Diary of a
Part-time Indian
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Offensive language
Sex education
Sexually explicit
Violence
Racism
Unsuited to age group
Most Challenged Book of 2010
And Tango Makes Three
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anti-ethnic
anti-family
Homosexuality
religious viewpoint
unsuited to age group
“Tango” has been the most challenged book 4 of the last 5 years.
Most Frequently Challenged
Authors
2010: Ellen Hopkins, Peter Parnell and
Justin Richardson, Sonya Sones, Judy
Blume, Ann Brasheres, Suzanne Collins,
Aldous Huxley, Sherman Alexie, Laurie
Halse Anderson, Natasha Friend
Where are books challenged?
Map of Challenges
Challenged “Classics”
•The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
•“anti-white”, “obscene”, “filthy”, “centered around negative activity”
•The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
•“vulgar words”, "for spreading propaganda unfavorable to the state“, “vain
& profane”
•To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
•"conflicted with the values of the community“, "contains profanity and
racial slurs"
•The Color Purple, Alice Walker
•"smut“, "troubling ideas about race relations, man's relationship to God,
African history and human sexuality"
Censorship Exhibit
University of Virginia
The Wrath of Grapes
785 Dirty Words
Censorship ends in logical
completeness when nobody is
allowed to read any books except
the books nobody reads.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Irish writer.
If we don't believe in freedom of
expression for people we despise,
we don't believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky
Think for yourselves and let others
enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
I disapprove of what you say, but I
will defend to the death your right
to say it.
Voltaire
Sources
•American Library Association
•http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm
•Banned Books Week
•http://bannedbooksweek.org/index.html
•Wielding the Red Pen (University of Virginia)
•http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/censored/wrath.html
Images courtesy of:
•Amazon.com
•http://amazon.com
•TitlePeek
•http://destiny.renton.wednet.edu
•Titlewave
•http://www.titlewave.com