Celebrating Banned Books Week 2014

1. FIND BANNED BOOKS

2. Banned Books Week

3. "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
to peaceably assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.“
A Democratic Society and
the Issue of Censorship

4. “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both
seek and receive information from all points of view without
restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of
ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or
movement may be explored.” -- ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom
Intellectual Freedom

5. Intellectual Freedom:
the basis for a
democratic society

7. Challenged . . . Restricted . . .
Banned!

8. Banning Books
• Restricts First
Amendment rights
• Suppresses opinions,
questions, and exposure to
new thoughts and
practices
Challenging Books
• Does not restrict First
Amendment rights
• Invites questions,
discussions, learning,
exposure of issues and
problems, raises
awareness, and stirs
various viewpoints
If it’s my right,
how can it be challenged?

9. • Administrators
• Board Members
• Clergy / Religious Groups
• Parents
• Teachers
• Students
• Library Patrons
• Elected Officials
• Organizations
• Community
Who Challenges Books?

10. • Administrators
• Board Members
• Clergy / Religious Groups
• Parents
• Teachers
• Students
• Library Patrons
• Elected Officials
• Organizations
• Community
Who Challenges Books?

11. Reasons for Book Challenges

12. Ready?

14. • Captain Underpants
• by Dav Pilkey
#1 Challenged Book in 2013!

15. “ . . . they demonstrate the value
of questioning authority”
– Dav Pilkey, author

17. Aren’t There Some Kinds
Of Expression That Really
Should Be Censored?

18. More recent challenges

19. • 2006: #1
• 2007: #1
• 2008: #1
• 2009: #2
• 2010: #1
• 2011: no reports
• 2012: #5
A “very dangerous” book

20. Blatt, Ben. "Why 'The Giver' Is One Of The Most Banned
Books In America." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc.,
14 Aug. 2014. Web. 8 Sept. 2014
The Giver by Lois Lowry

21. Controversy!

22. Most Frequently
Challenged Books in 2013

23. Captain Underpants (series)
by Dav Pilkey
#1

24. The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
"Long hours she sat looking in
the mirror, trying to discover
the secret of the ugliness, the
ugliness that made her ignored
or despised at school, by
teachers and classmates alike."
#2

25. The Absolutely
True Diary of a
Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
art by Ellen Forney
#3

26. Fifty Shades of Grey
by E L James
#4

27. The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
#5

28. A Bad Boy Can Be
Good for A Girl
by Tanya Lee Stone
#6

29. Looking for Alaska
by John Green
#7

30. The Perks of
Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky
#8

31. Bless Me Ultima
by Rudolfo Anaya
#9

32. Bone (series)
by Jeff Smith
#10

33. Censorship Timeline . . .

34. • 1450: Johannes Gutenberg invents printing press
• 1490: Germany's first official censorship office established when local
archbishop pleads with town officials to censor "dangerous publications"
• 1490 - 1529: Henry VIII of England establishes a licensing system requiring
printers to submit all manuscripts to Church of England for
approval
• 1529: Henry VIII outlaws all imported publications
• 1535: French King Francis I prohibits the printing of books
• 1559 - 1966: Roman Catholic Church issues the first
published list of forbidden books,
Index Librorum Prohibitorum

35. • 1650: First book burning in America – a religious pamphlet was confiscated
by Puritan authorities in Massachusetts, condemned by the General
Court, and burned by the public executioner in the Boston
marketplace.
• 1873: “Morals, not art and literature” Anthony Comstock convinces
Congress “Comstock Act,” banning the mailing of “lewd, indecent,
filthy or obscene” materials
• 1874 - 1915: Comstock’s reign as special agent of the US Post Office
• 1920s: Nationally publicized court battles over censored books begin to
erode the Comstock law.
• 1982: Island Trees School District v. Pico declared that the First
Amendment limits the power of school officials to remove books
from school libraries because of their content.

36. Book burnings: Nazi Germany

37. Closer than you think!

38. And more recent!

39. “You don’t have to burn
books to destroy a
culture. Just get people
to stop reading them.”
At what temperature does
paper burn?

40. • To Kill a Mocking Bird “a filthy, filthy book”
• Grapes of Wrath “inappropriate sexual references”
• Catcher in the Rye “obscene” and “excessive vulgar language”
• The Color Purple “sexual and social explicitness”
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “trash suitable only for the slums”
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl “sexually offensive”
• The Bell Jar “about suicide”
• Call of the Wild “too radical”
• Lord of the Flies “excessive violence and bad language”
Banned Classics

41. “Without our constant support, the First Amendment freedoms that we so
often take for granted – the right to read, explore ideas, and express
ourselves freely – are at risk.” – Robert P. Doyle

42. Reading develops
CRITICAL THINKING skills
(“the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue
in order to form a judgment”)
Why we read . . .

43. What do you think?