Tag: challenged books

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: One of Our Favorite Challenged Books

Edwin Turner2 Comments
E.W. Kemble's frontispiece to the original 1884 edition
E.W. Kemble's frontispiece to the original illustrated edition

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, undoubtedly one of the Great American Novels, ranks a healthy #5 on the ALA’s list the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. Young Huck’s casual colloquial use of the word “nigger” and the cruel hijinks Huck and Tom play on Jim at the novel’s end are two reasons that many have sought to suppress Twain’s masterpiece, including educator and critic John Wallace, who famously called it “the most grotesque example of racist trash ever given our children to read.” Wallace went so far as to suggest that “Any teacher caught trying to use that piece of trash with our children should be fired on the spot, for he or she is either racist, insensitive, naive, incompetent or all of the above.”

I guess I should’ve been fired on the spot, as I’ve used Huck Finn in my classroom a number of times, almost always in conjunction with excerpts from Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, some Philis Wheatley poems, and a UN report on modern human trafficking. Context is everything.

While I can concede readily that Huck, the voice of the novel, says some pretty degrading things about Jim, often meant (on Twain’s part) to create humor for the reader, to expect Twain’s treatment of race to be what we in the 21st century want it to be is to not treat the material with any justice. And while Huck Finn may be insensitive at times, it handles the issues of race, slavery, class, and escape from the dominant social order with the complexity and thought that such weighty issues deserve. Ultimately, the novel performs a critique on the hypocrisy of a “Christian,” “democratic” society that thought it was okay to buy and sell people. This critique shows up right in the second page. Consider these lines (boldface mine):

The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.

Huck’s dream is of a delicious mix, a swapping of juices — integration. Additionally, his disregard for the dead Bible heroes reveals that the white Christian society’s obsession with the ancient past comes at the expense of contemporary value. Huck, an orphan, and Jim, separated from his family, will symbolically echo Moses in the bulrushes as they use the great Mississippi as a conduit for escape, for freedom. Huck (or Twain, really) here points out that it’s not enough to look at dead words on a page, on old dead lawgivers–we have to pay attention to the evils and wrongs and hypocrisies that live today.

Twain even tells us how to read his book from the outset:

Now, it’s impossible to read a book–a good book–without finding its plot, searching for its moral, or caring about its characters, and Twain knows this. His “Notice” is tantamount to saying “don’t think about an elephant”–he uses irony to tell us we must find motive, moral, and plot here, and that we must do so through this lens of irony.

But of course, you have to read closely for all these things. I suppose it’s technically easier to call something trash, throw it in the garbage, and not have to devote time and energy to thinking about it. Who knows? You might learn something–and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Profanity/Hogs Mating

Biblioklept6 Comments
mating-pigs-thumb2869398.jpg

I work as a teacher for Duval County Public Schools. Last week, a 15 page document titled “Alphabetical Listing of Multimedia Material Reevaluated in Duval County” was dropped off in my mailbox; I’m not sure exactly why. The document lists well over 250 books, magazines, videos, and albums that were “reevaluated” due to complaints. Some of these books are frequent guests on the censorship block (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Racial,” Catcher in the Rye, “Offensive Language,” Are You There God? It’s Me, Margeret, “Religious, Sex, Introduction to Pornography,” As I Lay Dying “Profanity/Racial Slur”) and some are destined to be under scrutiny for a long time (Harry Potter, entire series, “Witchcraft, Occult, Spellcasting”). As you might expect, the dominant complaints revolve around profanity, sex, and a general sense that the book doesn’t fit in to the complainant’s worldview. Here are a few favorites of mine:

Goosebumps Series, R.L Stine — “Scary” (Yes. Correct. They’re supposed to be scary, jackass).Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond — “Bestiality/Darwinian evolution” (Natch–bestiality and Darwinian evolution go together like PB & J).

Halloween, Joyce K. Kessell — “Evil, Full of Lies” (Ach! Oh no! A fiction book that doesn’t tell the truth!)

The Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss — “Violence” (Admittedly, The Butter Battle Book was the peak of Seuss’s “Tarantino phase”)

Four Good Friends, Margaret Hillert — “Negative, Nonproducive tone” (What the fuck is a “Nonproducive tone”? What does that even mean?)

In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak — “Nudity” (This charming kid’s book repeatedly lands on the Most Frequently Challenged Books List)

Learning to Swim, Ann Turner — “Erotic and Sexual Nature” (Erotic and sexual? Intriguing…)

A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein — “Illustrations” (Huh? “Illustrations”? Huh? This book is actually right by me, my childhood copy, proudly shelved on the mantle…let’s review these nefarious illustrations…let’s see, let’s see…An Icarian hippo, perhaps? An unscratchable itch?Rhino pen? Nah…Is it perhaps, the “Union for Children’s Rights” picture (pgs 140-141 in my 1981 Harper & Row edition)? Gotta be…unionized kids…scary!)

Kid in the Red Jacket, Barbara Park — “”Stupid” and “God”” (Again, I ask “Huh?”)

Little Red Riding Hood, Paul Galdone — “Violence/Wine” (Two of my favorite things!)

Marijuana, Martin Godfrey — “Drugs” (Really? Who knew Marijuana would contain “drugs”)

Matilda, Roald Dahl — “Vulgar, Unethical” (This is one of my favorite books. Attempting to suppress it and keep kids from reading it is both vulgar and unethical)

Our Country Spain, David Cumming — “Mediterranean Beach Picture” (Good lord no!)

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde — “Morality” (What is the problematic “morality” of Dorian Gray? Or did the offended parent have a problem with Oscar’s proclivities for the lovely youths?)

Santa Claus Mystery, John Godman — “Conflict w/ Santa Myth” (I wish they’d be more specific–what’s the conflict? Is there a “set” Santa myth? What is it?)

Tar Baby, Toni Morrison — “Sex, Violence, Myth” (Myth? Really? Myth is offensive?)

The Visitors Who Came to Stay, A. McAffee and A. Browne — “Pictures” (Again, please, be specific when you want to ban a book. “Pictures” simply won’t cut it)

Where is Gah-Ning, Robert Munsch — “Blatant disregard for moral standard” (Okay, that’s a little more specific, I guess–but still asinine).

Which Witch, Eva Ibboston; The Witches, Roald Dahl; Witches, Witches, Witches, Helen Hoke; Witches, Rhoda Blumberg; The Witches of Worm, Z. Keatley Snyder; The Witch’s Handbook, Malcolm Bird — “Witchcraft, Occult” (Duh)

Worry Worts, Morris Gleitzman — “Sexual Context” (I wonder if this book is about STDs…)

A Day No Pigs Would Die, Robert Newton — “Profanity/Hogs Mating” (Sounds like a party to me!)

The Biblioklept Interview: Eddie de Oliveira

Edwin Turner4 Comments

Last month a local news station reported that Eddie de Oliveira’s book Lucky was being placed under review by the Duval Public School Board. Apparently an upset mother was disturbed by some of the content of the book; instead of calling the school directly, she allegedly went directly to the local news. I reacted by posting this blog, to which Eddie responded. We exchanged a few emails and I tried to contact some of the people involved in this story; I believe Folio tried to follow up this story also, but the leads go nowhere. I still haven’t been able to find out if the book really is “under review,” but I asked my department head (I teach English) if such a review list or “banned list” existed, and she said she’d never heard of such a thing. She then became alarmed and told me to “be careful” with what my classes read. This is kind of an unwritten rule of public education: don’t rock the boat. Play it safe. Books can be dangerous.

There’s nothing dangerous about Lucky, though, and I mean that in the nicest way–it is a book intended for teens, after all. Some down here in the beautiful South may still be alarmed or shocked by the subject matter of a sexually confused teen navigating identity in modern London. However, the real themes here are hardly subversive: Young Adult (YA) fiction has a legacy of exploring what it means to be an individual among a collective, and how young people are to negotiate a “proper” space in society. In the case of Lucky‘s protagonist Sam, that “proper” space is constantly under attack from all directions, as he is repeatedly prompted to identify–is he straight? gay? bisexual? In a way, the novel creates a meta-critique of those who would question its valid, “proper” space in a school library–unfortunately, those would-be censors will probably not read the book, preferring to simply highlight “offending” words.

Lucky tells an important story about the search for identity that all teens have to traverse, and I would have no problem suggesting it to any of my students. Eddie was kind enough to answer a few questions, which you will find below.

You can find both of Eddie’s books, Lucky and Johnny Hazzard, at Amazon or your local library.

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Biblioklept: Have you ever stolen a book, and if so, could you
talk a little bit about that experience?

Eddie de Oliveira: I removed the Wide Awake Club book of Ghosts, Monsters
and Legends from my school library when I was around
ten years-old. The Wide Awake Club was a Saturday
morning kids’ show, and this book was the bomb.

BK: Have you ever borrowed a book and never returned it
(on purpose)?

EO: I have not. I never checked out the Wide Awake Club
book.

BK: What are you reading right now?

EO: I’m reading Four Trials by Senator John Edwards. Amid
all the media hullabaloo about Hillary and Barack,
I’ve been impressed by the one candidate for the
presidency who bothers to combine policies with
explanations on how he’ll implement them. I’m also
impressed by Edwards’ manner, rhetoric and sincerity.
Four Trials was published in 2003, and, as the title
suggests, it recounts four of Edwards’ most defining
moments in the courtroom when he was a trial lawyer,
defending the powerless against medical negligence and
corporate giants.

Next up, I’ll re-read The Perks of Being a Wallflower,
which I first read way back when.

BK: What were your favorite books as a child?

EO: I loved Roald Dahl – especially Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory and George’s Marvelous Medicine. I
re-read Charlie not so long ago and it really is
special. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird and
Lord of the Flies at school and thinking they were
extraordinary – helped, perhaps, by having a brilliant
English teacher back then, Mrs. Martin.

Way before I was 13, I read The Secret Diary of Adrian
Mole aged 13 ¾ and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
several times. And, of course, the Wide Awake Club
book of Ghosts, Monsters and Legends.

BK: You are currently an expatriate, living in Sweden.
Could you say a few words on this?

EO: London was pissing me off and in Sweden, most ‘things’
work very well. It may be colder, but the tap water
tastes like water should and the Stockholm air doesn’t
turn my white earphones black after two days.
Everybody speaks English very well (some better than
my compatriots) which makes learning Swedish rather
hard. Public transport is cheap and, for the most
part, reliable. The overwhelming sense here is that
the government actually gives a shit about its
citizens.

I’ve done some freelance journalism and continued
working on new books and film projects since living
here.

BK: Your book Lucky could be seen to fall under the
rubric of Young Adult fiction. What do you think of YA
as a genre, and was it your initial intention to reach
young people with your book?

EO: Yes, Lucky and Johnny Hazzard are both YA. I think
it’s an important genre and, thankfully, a growing
one. More and more books are being written primarily
with teens in mind, and those of us who write them
have a significant and serious responsibility. That
responsibility is to stay relevant and realistic,
avoiding some kind of The OC type representation of
what it is to be an adolescent. I read Melvyn Burgess’
Doing It, a YA/adult crossover title. He’s a good
writer, no doubt about it, but it really reads like a
middle-aged man writing about teens.

Johnny Hazzard is a love story written for teenage
boys. It’s a hard sell, because teen boy aren’t
renowned for their reading. Probably the finest
compliment I’ve ever received was on a 17-year-old
Texan boy’s myspace page. He listed dozens of bands in
the favourite Music section, a bunch of films in the
Movies section, and, in Books, it just said “I don’t
really read except this one book called Johnny
Hazzard.”

If I ever stop knowing how a teenager thinks, I’lI
quit YA and begin writing cookbooks.

BK: As you know, a cranky mom in Duval County, here in
sunny Florida, has raised some objections to you book
Lucky having a place in her kid’s school library. Is
there any merit to her objections? If you could speak
with her, what would you say?

EO: There is no merit to her preposterous objections.
Censorship of any form is reprehensible. I don’t
accept that Lucky isn’t suitable for a child. It’s a
book about identity and figuring out where you fit in.
It is not a bomb-making manual.

If I could speak with her, I’d sit her down with a
fine Arctic Daquiri, served on a coaster with the text
of the First Amendment written over it. I’d ask her
what she’s afraid of, and offer her a signed copy of
Johnny Hazzard.

BK: How does one make an Arctic Dacquiri?

EO: Arctic Daquiri
———–
Lots of ice cubes
Winter fruits (berries)
Sugar water
Vodka

Put it in the blender. Absolutely wonderful.

BK: Are you an Edwin or an Edward (or possibly an
Edmund, or just an Eddie)?

EO: I’m neither, I’m an Eduardo. You also left out Edgar.

(ed. note: Biblioklept will now acknowledge an anglocentric bias that we didn’t even know we had!)

BK: According to your Myspace page, you and I are the
same age. How is it that you’ve managed to write and
publish two books, while I’ve accomplished so very,
very little in comparison? But no, seriously, how long
have you been writing? What kind of writing did you do
when you were younger?

EO: I’m motivated by guilt: Each and every day I feel I
haven’t achieved enough, and that motivates me to get
some work done. I have South American parents,
football was on the diet from a young age, and so I
look at my career like that of a footballer’s;
considering they hit their peak at 27 and tend to be
on the slide by 31, it’s not a constructive analogy.

I’ve been writing since I was small – I started out
with school magazines and little plays I’d put on with
my friends, then moved on to big plays I’d put on at
the Edinburgh Festival and in London, and then on to
the fiction novels, short films and journalism.

BK: You seem to be a big Beastie Boys fan. What draws
you to their music? What album is “the” Beastie Boys
album, in your opinion?

EO: The Beastie Boys are the most innovative and important
American band alive. They’re always a step ahead,
doing new things, mixing up genres and sounds. “The”
album for me has to be Paul’s Boutique, which did all
of those things I’ve just mentioned, but on a massive
scale. That record pioneered the art of sampling,
which is now a given in almost every modern musical
style.

Don’t Ban Books

Biblioklept7 Comments

I rarely write about “local” events (although “local” blogs are my favorite), but circumstances provoke me tonight. According to Jacksonville’s own Citadel of Truth, First Coast News, Eddie de Oliveira’s novel Lucky is under review by Duval County Public Schools (my Esteemed Employer, I add in the interest of full disclosure). A parent has complained that the book contains “questionable” material and should be banned from the school library. Aparently even in the late oughties the theme of a sexually-confused teenager is “questionable.” According to the (short) report, the parent was particularly offended by “gay themes” and the words “swinger’s party.” The story was barely a blip in the background as the wife and I prepared fresh pesto, so I didn’t catch what particular school said parent’s spawn attends [ed. note–I found out Tuesday morning that the school is none other than LaVilla School of the Arts (emphasis mine)–Jiminy Cricket, what’s up when it’s the art school parents attacking books!] but even if it is an elementary school (which it probably isn’t, not that that matters), banning books from our public school system is regressive at best, and ultimately an abasement of knowledge and intellect. In the past, DCPS has restricted and/or banned The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men and at least a dozen more books (I haven’t been able to locate a complete list as of now). Of course, every year many books are challenged (the Harry Potter series springs immediately to mind, and Judy Blume has always caused problems for uptight parents who don’t want to talk honestly with their kids) and as an English teacher I’ve dealt with this in my own classroom, from both parents and administration (an administrator advised [i.e. told] me not to have my students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; another time an administrator was shocked by the diction of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes Were Watching God). This particular mother’s concern is the “questionable” nature of the Lucky‘s themes which might cause readers to uhm, you know, question stuff. If super-mom doesn’t want her kid to read so-and-so, that’s fine with me (and what a great, attentive parent to be all up in the grill of said child’s reading material. Seriously. We (educationeers) really encourage reading with your kids. For real)–but why attempt to ban the book? Why can’t the rest of us make these decisions for ourselves? I could go and on, but I think that my readers don’t need convincing (if you need convincing that banning books is an anti-progress gesture indicative of a caveman mentality, email me at biblioklept.ed@gmail.com). Let’s not add to Jax’s reputation as a bastion of provincial attitudes (particularly in light of recent vagina-controversies): if necessary, we must fight for this book, and every other book’s, place on the library shelf.

For a list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, go here.

Classic Crime Comics Covers

Biblioklept2 Comments

Another covers gallery. I love this one–plenty of weirdness!

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Zombie kisses…mmm. The taboo pleasures of necrophilia in four-color glory!

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William Burroughs wasn’t the only one addressing the horrors of drug addiction. These touchy themes led to constant censorship battles for EC Comics.

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The horrors of love. I like this guy’s beard.

EC Comics, MAD Magazine, Censorship, and the Comics Code Authority

Biblioklept5 Comments

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When I was a kid, I loved loved loved MAD Magazine: I loved Alfred E. Neuman’s gap-toothed grin on the cover, I loved Don Martin’s wacky comic strips, I loved the fake ads, I loved the movie and TV show parodies that I didn’t understand (to this day there are certain movies that I only know about via MAD), I loved the Sergio Aragonés doodles that hid in the margins, I loved “Spy vs. Spy,” I loved the endless recycling of strips and parodies that were older than I was by a longshot,  I loved Al Jaffee’s “fold-ins” (even though they quickly wore down to unfunny illegibility within minutes), I even loved the perennially unfunny “Lighter Side of Strip.” I think most of all I loved the bizarre guttural language of MAD–the unpronounceable explosions of fricatives and glottals, the joyful and rude “smrzzps!” and “schlups!” and “putzes” that provided the perfect soundtrack for my pre-adolescent pre-angst. Surely, this was the special argot of the adult world, the perfect onomatopoeia of grown-up comedy. Even as a young kid, I knew that MAD was in some way offensive, that it somehow tested the bounds of decency. Of course, I mistook what was essentially puerile for something more urbane.

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So I was initially disappointed when I received Maria Reidelbach’s Completely Mad for Christmas one year. I guess I was expecting it to be a special all-color glossy hardback anthology. Eventually, I got around to reading it, and thus I learned the history of EC Comics and the censorship trials that the brand–and comics in general–had to endure. To this day, again and again, comic books come under the fire of those who wish to censor (check out the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s short history of censorship in comics to learn more). 

Under the editorial direction of William Gaines, EC Comics in the early 1950s specialized in horror, sci-fi, and true crime comics, publishing classic titles such as Tales from the Crypt and Weird Fantasy. These comics featured twisting and twisted plots, boldly illustrated with strong lines and graphic images. In a repressed and fearful age, EC Comics openly addressed problems of racial segregation and arms proliferation. The lurid artwork and progressive themes finally proved too much for Dr. Fredric Wertham, who addressed the supposed threat comics proved to the youth of America in Sedcution of the Innocent. Fitting right in to the McCarthyism of the era, Wertham’s book led to a Congressional hearing on comic books. In an attempt to regulate and control his own product, Gaines banded with other publishers to form the Comics Code Authority. This pre-emptive strike backfired, however–the CCA decided that they needed to censor every comic that came out, and give it this stamp of approval (still seen on mainstream comics today!)–

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If you’re interested in reading the full (and necessarily vague) code, check out Once Upon a Dime’s article here.

A disappointed Gaines quickly left the CCA but the damage was done. They ruled that comics couldn’t be published with words like “horror” or “weird” in the title, effectively blacklisting EC’s major titles.

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Check out this review of Psychoanalysis #1 at Polite Dissent.

Gaines continued to publish new comics like MD, and Psychoanalysis, but the CCA had poisoned the well. EC Comics went under, plagued by censorship battles and distribution  problems. Gaines focused all of his efforts on MAD, turning it into a full-sized magazine in 1955. MAD Magazine has been in continuous publication for over 50 years–although today the magazine prints paid ads. Yeah. That sucks, doesn’t it? So MAD has succumbed to commercialism–no wonder, considering that it’s the commodity name for such a crappy TV show. Even so, I’ll always recall gleefully devouring “Special Editions” of MAD, reprint digests chock full of references I didn’t get, thinking that I was gaining some forbidden knowledge. Maybe I was. 

Crimes by Women

Biblioklept2 Comments

True crimes. Get lurid.

Crime Never Pays!

William Burroughs Cover Gallery

Biblioklept5 Comments

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Burroughs appears on a large number of his covers, whether as a photograph, or something more iconic:

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I like this early, lurid pulp edition of Junky. Note the spelling of the title, as well as Burroughs’ pseudonym, William Lee:

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The Wild Boys: One of my faves.

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This Spanish edition of Naked Lunch really captures the squeamish quality of all things Burroughs:

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Check out the full gallery here.

America’s Most Commodified: Ernest Hemingway

Biblioklept8 Comments

A few posts back, this blog turned some attention to what happens when writers become commodities sold by persona. Commodification results in a kind of lazy cultural shorthand that pre-empts the need to actually read the author and discuss their works: the author instead becomes a signifier of an abstracted ideal, a rubric of adjectives that the consumer can use to “identify” with their own life. It seems to me that no author has been more commodified than Ernest Hemingway. For example, check out The Ernest Hemingway Collection for a selection of clothes, home furnishings, and other chintzy crap. From their website:

“You can now share in his spirit as an adventurer, author and romantic. His legend can be brought to your home through this entire Ernest Hemingway Collection. Every item has been hand selected and approved to ensure authenticity. Enjoy this celebration of the man and the memory.”

Yes! You too can buy a certain kind of authenticity! But do throw pillows and bed spreads really convey a balance of macho resolve and artistic sensitivity just because a corporartion sticks Hemingway’s name on them? Who buys this stuff anyway? According to this article, it’s the “new male shoppers” that are interested in this kind of decor–and what do the “new male shoppers” read? They don’t have to read Hemingway, because distinguished literary journals such as Maxim and Men’s Vogue have already digested and sanctified it for them: Hemingway gets the stamp of approval–he was macho, a hunter and a drinker and a fighter–just one of the frat boys.

Years ago, at a party in Gainesville, I remember a guy bringing up Hemingway. I was on the outs with Hemingway at this point, so I prodded the guy—why did he like Hemingway? What about the work was so meaningful to him? More prompting yielded what I should have guessed: the guy drunkenly, laughingly admitted that he hadn’t read anything by Hemingway, it was just a stock answer that he gave to the question: “Who’s your favorite writer?”

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Who are the future stock answers? It seems like the hard-drinking ex-pat writers of the 30’s and 40’s had the right balance of persona and mystique to create their own mythos–but what about today’s greats? How will the future sell them?

Guy Fawkes Day and V for Vendetta

Biblioklept2 Comments

“Remember, remember the 5th of November…”

I was lucky enough to live in New Zealand for a few years as a kid, so I got to experience Guy Fawkes Day. We made effigies of Guy, and then we burned them on a bonfire. There was a barbecue, and fireworks. To me it seemed a strange mixture of the Fourth of July and Halloween.

It was a few years after my last Guy Fawkes experience that I read Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. V, an anarchist who wears a stylized Guy Fawkes mask, wages a vigilante war on a harsh authoritarian government. Along with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, V was a first for me, something different than the stuff I was reading at the time, stuff like The Uncanny X-Men and the ill-fated Valiant Comics imprint (I actually made a small fortune selling early Valiant issues I owned).  

A film version of V for Vendetta was released in 2006; Alan Moore famously had his name removed from it. I enjoyed the film, although it certainly wasn’t as good or thought-provoking as Moore’s original story; and even though the film looked good, the passive experience of watching an action movie can’t measure up to David Lloyd’s original art work and that wonderful space between the panels of comics that engages the reader’s imagination.

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This afternoon I finished the first graphic novel of Alan Moore’s  run writing Swamp Thing, and I can’t wait until my library hold on the second graphic novel comes in. I had no idea Saga of the Swamp Thing would be as good as it was, nor as beautifully illustrated; it’s actually much better than V for Vendetta or Moore’s other famed work, Watchmen (and none of these titles are even in the same league as Moore’s masterpiece, From Hell). Alan Moore and Steve Bissette’s run on the DC Comics series essentially led to DC’s creation of the edgier Vertigo imprint for their more “mature” titles, such as The Sandman. These titles helped to change the audiences of “comic books” and helped to make the graphic novel a new standard in the medium (no mean feat, considering the fanboyish culture of comic nerds, a culture that prizes rarity of print run over quality of storytelling).

V for Vendetta illustrates what happens when we don’t allow for dissent, what happens when ideas are both prescribed and proscribed, and all dialogue is muted. Authoritarian governments consolidate their power from the silencing of ideas. A healthy society requires all sorts of opinions, even ones we don’t like. The smiling Americans in this photo aren’t burning effigies of would-be revolutionaries, they are burning something much more dangerous–books.

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100 Most Frequently Challenged Books

Biblioklept6 Comments

Via bibliophil,  (links by biblioklept):

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books
of 1990–2000
Compiled by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom does not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges.
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Any favorites on the list? I’ve got a few. I’ve read or at least familiar with 57 of these, including most of the top 25. What’s the beef with Where’s Waldo? Image links to a much better write up on banned books via the MPBA.