1. WEEK OF September 25, 2010
Banned Books Week
Sept. 25—Oct. 2, 2010
Celebrate your freedom to read!
What is Banned What does
Books Week? “challenged” mean?
Banned Book Week cele- Someone found that book
Books banned in brates your freedom to offensive for some reason
not only choose what you and did not want others
some locations... read, but to choose from a (often students) to be able
The Color Purple wide array of possibilities. to read it. So they asked
that it be removed from a
How to Eat Fried Worms The freedom to read is library.
essential to our democra-
Harry Potter cy, is protected by the 1st What is Censorship?
What My Mother Doesn’t amendment to the Consti- Main reasons books
Know tution, and is among our Censorship is the suppres- have been challenged:
greatest freedoms. sion of ideas and infor-
Captain Underpants mation that certain per- Political Content
Go Ask Alice
What does “banned” sons find dangerous or Sexual Content
mean? objectionable. Language offensive
to peoples race, reli-
This means the book was gion, ethnic back-
removed from the shelves
ground, gender, sex-
of either a public or a
uality, or cultural
school library so people
did not have access to it. beliefs.
A book gets banned after
a person or a group Information provided by
“challenges” the book. American Library
Association
Ten books challenged in 2009-2010
Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian by
Sherman Alexie
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer
Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an
Unpleasant Age edited by Ariel Schrag
ttyl, by Lauren Myracle
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls