Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

in ,
Bless Me, Ultima
By Rudolfo Anaya

A boy and his magical grandmother battle evil while going to church and finding fish gods. Also, the farmer and the cowman can be friends.

Banned

1992 - California - Challenged at the Porterville high schools for "many profane and obscene references, vulgar Spanish words, and glorifies witchcraft and death"

1996 - Texas - Retained on the Round Rock Independent High School Reading list after a challenge that the book was too violent

1999 - California - Removed from the Laton Unified School District for violence and profanity that might harm students after being chosen because the student population is 80 percent Hispanic.

2000 - New York - Challenged at the John Jay High School in Wappingers Falls because the book is "full of sex and cursing"

2005 - Norwood, Colorado, Norwood High School - after the book was removed from reading lists and to be destroyed, the parents asked to burn it - The book was removed by the superintendent after two parents complained about profanity. He gave all copies of the books to the parents who "tossed them in the trash." The superintendent later apologized after students organized an all day sit-in at the school gym. 

2008 - Newman, CA, Orestimba High School - removed by the superintendent for being "profane and anti-Catholic." Teachers claimed the superintendent circumvented policy on book challenges and set a dangerous precedent. 

2013 - Driggs, ID, Teton Valley School District - Removed and reinstated after being banned by the superintendent for "profanity and alleged inappropriateness"

Part of The Big Read

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan 30

in
Killing Mr. Griffin
By Lois Duncan

A bunch of kids decide it would be funny to kidnap their teacher but everything goes horribly wrong, mostly because one of them is Bonkers McCrazynuts.

Banned

Contains violence, murder, drinking, drugs, lying to authority, peer pressure and smoking

#25 on Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009

1988 - California - Challenged at the Sinnott Elementary School in Milpitas for containing "needlessly foul" language and had no "redeeming qualities"

1992 - California - Removed from Bonsall Middle School eighth-grade reading list because of violence and profanity

1995 - Pennsylvania - Challenged ain the Shenandoah Valley Junior-Senior High School curriculum for violence, language, and unflattering references to God

2000 - Pennsylvania - Challenged in a Bristol Borough middle school for violence and language

2001 - South Carolina - Greenville school board voted to keep the book

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources:

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

Goodreads

Common Sense Media

American Library Association

American Libraries Magazine

Paper Towns by John Green

in
Paper Towns
By John Green

A boy likes this girl who helps him realize the world is… something. Fucking teenagers, right?

Banned

2014, Pasco County, Florida - The book was removed from a middle school reading list after a parent complained about the book's language, talk of masturbation, and sexual situations. The book was reinstated after multiple complaints.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

in

What would happen if one of the Hogwart's Houses started using the Matrix to fuck up and control the other houses? Of course you would get something that wants to be a society based on the insane asylum from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest! Follow Tris as she does little but cower in the face of adversity and pine for her boyfriend in Insurgent.

Banned

The only instance of the word "banned" coming up in context of this book online was for people threatening to remove comments from comment sections of articles where people took this teen novel too seriously.

That being said, it does contain violence, gun use, parental abuse, distrust of authority, distrust of smart people, borderline sexual situations, and long passages about dumb teenage lust that sounded okay when Shakespeare wrote them 400 years ago but kids today should know better.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources:

Goodreads

Divergent Episode

The Giver Episode (mostly for spelling of "teen dystopia")

Hunger Games Episode (mostly for spelling of "dystopian teen bullshit")

Divergent by Veronica Roth

in

In the near future, Chicago is divided into factions who value random virtues. Tris, our hero, shows aptitude for various virtues making her Divergent, so she switches from the boring people to the crazy people. While in crazy person land, Tris learns to shoot things and beat up things. Can she overcome her fears and wanting to bone down with her instructor to stop the plot to destroy society? Listen to the podcast and find out!

Or read the book. Whichever.

Banned

The book is full of violence, death, resisting authority, talking back to your elders, underage drinking, sex talk, and bad plotting. The last one is subjective, but I objected to it.

No exact cases

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume

in
Tiger Eyes
By Judy Blume

When Davey's father dies, she and her family move to New Mexico to deal with all their feelings. And so many feelings happen.

Davey's father dies in a violent shooting at their convenience store, so her, her mother and her brother move down to live with their aunt and uncle in New Mexico. When their mother checks out with grief, the aunt and uncle become very protective. Davey responds to this by making friends with Wolf, a hot dude she met hiking, and Jane, a teen with a drinking problem. After a year, Davey deals with her feelings about, well, everything, and they all go home changed.

The book was banned for teenage depression, mild sex attitudes, religious debates, and underage drinking. It has held a place on the ALA banned books list since the list was made, falling around the 80s out of 100. While there are few accounts reported online after a quick search, the placement on the list shows it is relevant and used forty years after publication.

The book is standard teen fare set up by Blume way back when, copied by many to the point of rather blandness. The overbearing parents and teen angst seem tired but are well executed. Well written and short, the book is good for a quick afternoon and won't frighten away most teengers if you tell them it is all about sex, violence, and drinking.

Banned

1984

Indiana - Challenged at Daleville Elementary due to sexual content

Pennsylvania - Removed from Hanover School District's elementary and secondary libraries, later placed on "restricted shelf," for being "indecent and inappropriate"

Wyoming - Challenged at Casper school libraries

1999 - Louisiana - Removed from the Many Junior High library shelves for sexual content, drinking at school, and language

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien

in
The Hobbit
By J. R. R. Tolkien

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien is a children's fantasy book that kicked the genre in the ass in a big way. Stories of far away, scary lands with magical beings have always been popular, just look at King Arthur and Merlin, but The Hobbit is special in the way National Lampoon's Vacation made family comedies special. Just putting the story on a road seemed to help bring new life.

To say the story has no flaws, however, depends on your willingness to read verse and give a shit about your characters. Many times the dwarves and other characters lapse into song that can be skipped over without losing story. Also, besides going from place to place, the characters do not do very much. There is an internal change, especially in the central character of Bilbo, but overall the party just goes from place to place, gets in trouble, then get saved. They do little except forward the plot with their own need to go somewhere. This is boring save the few times Bilbo hobbits-up and becomes more active, but even then it leads to little but an excuse for a dues ex machina device to come save the day.

The book was banned several times over the years, most notably in 2001 in Alamagordo, New Mexico where a Christian rights group held a book burning. The themes of friendship and striving against adversity were lost among those looking for witchcraft and "satanic themes," so the book has suffered. Overall, however, The Hobbit and the sequel series, The Lord of the Rings, have escaped most detractors due to the strong messages and obvious fantasy elements they contain. Hope, friendship, kindness, and general fighting against adversity for the greater good are themes we can all embrace.

Banned

2001 - New Mexico - Burned in Alamogordo outside Christ Community Church along with other Tolkien novels as satanic.

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

in

Memory erupts from the mind at the most casual instances. A smell of sharp detergent, a touch of soft fabric, the vision of sun on trees with a cool wind on your face, all these can bring forth the past in detail, emotions and broken dreams of long ago times. Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one man’s journey into his past, his childhood. The exploration of this past brings horror and joy, home and comfort that touches on the creation of a dreamer through lost time and the perception of universal truths.

We begin with a man returning home for a funeral and visiting a place where he once knew a girl who believed a small pond was an ocean. The narrator goes into his own past, telling of a suicide that lead to the meeting of the peculiar Hempstock family. While journeying with Lettie Hempstock, the youngest of the family, he brings into the world something old and other that terrorizes him. The other thing is driven from this world but not without great cost, both the Hempstocks and the boy who became a man.

The obvious reference of the tale is Gaiman’s own childhood. He says as much, using it as a way to describe his childhood through metaphors of holes in hearts looking to be filled and the dreamer searching for stories after losing part of his own. If this sounds as though I am being vague in my interpretation of the text, it is because I’m reflecting the feeling of the story. Childhood is nothing but notions and expressions of awakening, of searching without knowing what you are looking for. The otherworldly aspects of the story simply serve to remind the reader that everything when you are young is unknown, that sometimes you have to realize you will never be old enough to grasp the whole of the universe.

Various points in the story touch on writing and reading in ways I can not be sure everyone will find. Speaking from my own experience, several moments and passages cut deep, peeling away beliefs I held and a life I felt I lived. Simply giving context to that statement would expose much of my own belief in the world and my own childhood that I am not sure I want to share in a public forum, yet let’s say somethings are universal no matter if you are in the English countryside fighting monsters or in the piney woods of Mississippi trying to sleep at night. We humans are simple creatures, really, bound to our lives in quiet desperation often shouting into our own voids. Mr. Gaiman has the ability to reach across his void and remind the reader that he or she is not alone, a rare talent and gift the best storytellers possess.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins

in

Banned

2010 - New Hampshire - Challenged by a parent to the Goffstown school board who claimed it gave her 11-year-old nightmares and could numb other students to violence

What if you wanted to kill children in a systematic and fun way? Well, first you’d ravage the environment, centralize the government creating a wild utopia surrounded by disparate states who’d fund the utopia, and then set up an elaborate reality show where in children from these disparate states would battle for the death for the pride of their state. In the Hunger Games, we see this dream come to fruition and succeed and then fail through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, the girl with the Mockingjay tattoo but really just a pin.

The story of the Hunger Games is old as time itself. Following Katniss, we see her enter into the battle royal against her will and compete for her life while finding sorta love and a sense of purpose while the world collapses around her. The first novel centers on her entrance into the games and the set up of the world, showing how the society is focused on the horrific murder of children by children for children. The second book continues with her post traumatic stress, throwing her back into the games as a way to discredit the martyr she became. The third book centers around the open rebellion and overthrow of the games and the Capitol that creates them, showing the horrors of war and the effect it has on our characters while being fairly poorly planned as a written story. Each builds on the other to a disappointing, yet final ending. Or does it? Sure, why not.

The reason these books are mentioned here are three fold: there’s a movie coming out, they are extremely popular, and they are about child murder. Children in jeopardy is a long held trope in fiction, back when Huckleberry Finn and Treasure Island kid were going off to have adventures and establish themselves as kids dealing with horrific stuff. The Hunger Games series amps up the trauma for today’s youth by having violence, eugenic experiments, and a centralized government that celebrates the horror for entertainment. The twist the later books depend on, that even the good guys can become broken monsters when fighting monsters, also lend credence that humanity as a whole is broken and worthy of destruction by our own hand. Sure, one government murders children in televised games but the approaching new world order did not get there by holding hands and singing “Timber” as the previous government fell. Nobody gets out of the Hunger Games series untouched, even the guy doing it for love who gets brainwashed into becoming a violent killing machine.

The series was clearly rushed in the writing and publication. The first book is a straightforward tale, thought-out and well plotted while the second and third amble along admirably under the same “meet everybody for the first half and go into battle mode for the second half.” The psychology of the characters is interesting and developed if you read into the narrative, but on the surface comes across as boring melodrama between teens in a war setting. The third book suffers the most as the set up is supposed to be a shock to the reader yet comes across as bland and formulaic after the initial reveal wears off. By the end, there is little for our narrator and heroine to do, possibly a theme of the piece but more often than not boring. Come for the child murder but stick around because why not finish these easy to digest books.

Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging our Freedom to Read. 2014

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy by R L Stine

in ,

Ready to get terrifying nightmares and the most heart-pounding terror of horror? Too bad, we read Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy by R L Stine.

Banned

1996 - Florida - Series was challenged at Bay County elementry schools for "satanic symbolism, disturbing scenes, and dialog"

1997 - Minnesota - Challenged but retained at the Anoka-Hennepin school system

Sources

CNN - Minneapolis, MN

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/