Warm Up

Why do certain groups (government, schools, companies, etc.) try to limit what we read, listen to, and watch? What would be their purpose for doing this?

Censorship

Censorship

• The official restriction of any expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order.

• “Fear of ideas makes us impotent and ineffective.” – William O. Douglas

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• “It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” - Judy Blume

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Fahrenheit 451

"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal...A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?...They [firemen] were given new jobs, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me" (56)

Banned Books

• A banned book is one that has been removed from the shelves of a library, bookstore, or classroom because of its controversial content.
• A book may be challenged or banned on political, religious, sexual, or social grounds.
• In some cases, banned books of the past have been burned and/or refused publication.
• Possession of banned books has, at times, been regarded as an act of treason or heresy, which was punishable by death, torture, prison time, or other acts of retribution.

1984 by George Orwell

• Challenged in Jackson County, FL (1981) because Orwell's novel is "pro-communist and contains explicit sexual matter."
• The book is commonly removed from U.S. schools under the “pro communist” argument; and ironically enough, for being considered “anti-government.”
• It was banned and burned in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin's rule for its' negative attitude toward communism, and reading it could have resulted in your arrest.
• It ranks as high as #5 most challenged book of all time.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

• Since it was published, Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned or challenged on at least 18 occasions.
• The school board of Republic High School in southwestern Missouri recently voted 4-0 to ban the novel from their curriculum and pull it from the library’s shelves.
• When the book was stricken from the public schools of Oakland County, Michigan in 1972, the circuit judge called it “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.”
• In 1973 the Drake Public School Board in North Dakota set 32 copies aflame in the high school’s coal burner.
• A few years later, the Island Trees school district of Levittown, New York removed Slaughterhouse-Five and 8 other books from its high school and junior high libraries. Board members called the books “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.”

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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

• Removed from the required reading list of the West Marion high school in Foxworth, Mississippi (1998) for profanity.
• Students at the Venado Middle School in Irvine, California (1992) received copies of the book with words deemed to be “offensive” (e.g. “hell” and “damn”) crossed out. Students and parents protested, and after being contacted by the media, school officials agreed to stop using the censored copies. Ironically, this book is about book-burning and censorship, with the message that books are banned for fear of creating too much individualism and independent thought.

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The Giver by Lois Lowry

• The Giver has created controversy in libraries and classrooms across the country since it was first published in 1993.
• The Giver graced the American Library Association's top 100 list both decades of its existence, ranking eleventh from 1990-1999, while dropping to twenty-third from 2000-2009.
• The most frequently cited reasons to challenge The Giver have been “Violence” and claims that the book is “Unsuited to [the] Age Group”—or in other words that it’s too dark for youth.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

• Banned in Ireland (1932).
• Removed from a classroom in Miller, MO (1980), because it made promiscuous sex "look like fun."
• Challenged as required reading at the Yukon, Oklahoma High School (1988) because of "the book's language and moral content."
• Challenged as required reading in the Corona-Norco, California Unified School District (1993) because it is "centered around negative activity." Specifically, parents objected that the characters' sexual behaviour directly opposed the health curriculum, which taught sexual abstinence until marriage.
• Removed from the Foley, Ala. High School Library (2000) pending review, because a parent complained that its characters showed contempt for religion, marriage, and family.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

• Challenged in the Waterloo, Iowa schools (1992) because of profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women and the disabled.
• Downgraded from “required” to “optional” on the summer reading list for 11th graders in the Upper Moreland, Penn. School District (2000) due to “age-inappropriate” subject matter.
• In Toronto, a parent formally complained about the use of this dystopian novel in a Grade 12 English class at Lawrence Park Collegiate (2008). The parent said that the novel’s “profane language,” “anti-Christian overtones”, “violence” and “sexual degradation” violated the district school policies that require students to show respect and tolerance to one another.

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Some of the most frequently challenged books:

• Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
• The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
• Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
• ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
• Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
• The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
• Forever, by Judy Blume
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
• Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
• King and King, by Linda de Haan
• To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• The Giver, by Lois Lowry
• Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison
• Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
• The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
• We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
• What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
• Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
• Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
• Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
• Life is Funny, by E.R. Frank
• Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
• Blubber, by Judy Blume
• Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
• Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
• 1984 by George Orwell

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• Daughters of Eve, by Lois Duncan
• Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going
• The Stupids (series), by Harry Allard
• The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney
• The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
• A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
• Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
• Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
• Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
• The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
• Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
• A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
• A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
• Black Boy, by Richard Wright
• Deal With It!, by Esther Drill
• Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
• Cut, by Patricia McCormick
• Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
• The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
• Bumps in the Night, by Harry Allard
• Shade’s Children, by Garth Nix
• Grendel, by John Gardner
• The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
• Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
• America: A Novel, by E.R. Frank�

Top 10 Challenged Books (2020)

https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=25384

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Certain books should be banned in public school libraries.

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• Consider the implications of book censorship in schools. Develop a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the above statement. Support your argument with appropriate evidence from your reading, observation, or experience. Write ONE FULL PAGE (double spaced) and submit to TII by 11:59pm tomorrow 10/19.