Favorite Banned YA Titles

[E. Kristin Anderson (Emily)]

Since Miss Palin has us all shaking in our boots with her book banning ways, let's celebrate the books she doesn't want us to read!

Personally, I just read Weetzie Bat last week for the first time and found it so beautiful and charming! I can see why maybe it's not the most appropriate book in the world for, say, 5th graders, but let's let our teens think for themselves!

I'm also a big Judy Blume fan - Are You There God, It's Me Margaret was HUGE for me when I read it at ten or twelve. Even though so much of it is dated (belts!), Margaret speaks to adolescent girls like no other literary character ever could.

Some of my favorite recent YA books are Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicolson series, and I'm infinitely entertained that the second book, On The Bright Side I'm Now The Girlfriend of a Sex God, was challenged because of the title, not the content. According to info I got at the ALA when I was setting up displays at my store (I'd quote directly if it weren't weeks ago and I could remember the exact page), parents were worried that an older man might see a girl reading the book and think her promiscuous and then stalk her. There was also concern that girls would think from the title that it was cool to date older men which could lead to statutory rape. Not that any of this happens in the book. Sheesh.

[SupernovakGirl]

Yeah, my mom wouldn't let me read Harry Potter until I was 13. She gave me the first 5 books for my 13th birthday. I think that she thought I did not know the difference between fantasy and reality. I imagine she thought I'd do something along the lines of grabbing a broom and trying to jump off the roof. Hmm.

[E. Kristin Anderson (Emily)]

There are also certain schools of thought that children shouldn't be allowed access to anything non-real until a certain age. There are a lot of Montessori schools in Austin (where I live and work) and so we get a lot of parents and librarians looking specifically for non-magic books. It was a total culture shock from me, as I grew up in the Northeast where I never met someone who had a problem with Harry Potter or the M word.

[SupernovakGirl]

Yeah, I'm from Dallas. Texas is weird.

My parents let me read whatever I want now, thank goodness. It took them sixteen years. There's something about the south...

[E. Kristin Anderson (Emily)]

I'm in Austin. I understand!

[Katie]

Dallas! (Sorry I'm from Dallas too) I ditto your statement. The south *IS* weird.

[Lucy]

i have a bunch of ultra-christian friends who cant see or read harry potter. i cry for them.

[Jaden]

yeah its the exact same thing in my small town in Kansas and im glad my parents don't question what i read so i read everything i can get my hands on.

[Christine Norris]

Not so much the M word as the W word - witchcraft. Some groups tried to have it banned from schools on the basis that witchcraft was a religion and they don't allow religious books in schools. LOL.

What they failed to realize, since they of course hadn't actually READ any of the books, is that Harry Potter has as much to do with actual Wicca as Sarah Palin does with evolution.

[E. Kristin Anderson (Emily)]

Yeah. A lot of people have decided that anything with magic in it promotes witchcraft.

[Anna]

Wasn't John Green's book Looking For Alaska challenged as well?
Book banning is so wrong!
I know a 7th grade teacher around where I live in North Carolina tried to use Harry Potter in her classes and there was a riot from the parents. Ridiculous.

[E. Kristin Anderson (Emily)]

Yeah, it was - something about sexual content. It's in my to read pile, and I LOVE the new jacket they just put on it. Regardless, yeah, book banning is super annoying. On the whole, it's a handful of people ruining the joy of reading for the rest of us.

[Katie]

If anybody cares, here is John Green's response to the book banning: