# Books too taboo for school **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 8, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365 "2003-01-08T20:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/21 "2003-01-09T05:00:25Z")
Huh. I would have thought because they are worthless education-wise and shouldn’t be wasting space in a school. ---
**Author:** ![TyrC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de0a6/32.png) [@TyrC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TyrC)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/22 "2003-01-09T06:10:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neurotik \* > \*\*Huh. I would have thought because they are worthless education-wise and shouldn’t be wasting space in a school. \*\* ``` Reading involves more than just heavy handed education. Entertainment also comes from reading. "Where's Waldo" is entertaining in short doses and you could argue that it builds observation skills. ``` TyrC! ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/23 "2003-01-09T06:12:58Z")
That list is ridiculous. I guess I went to a fairly liberal school, as at least 10 of them were actually required reading. In all honest, that “Scary Stories” series has some extreeemely freaky illustrations. ---
**Author:** ![jjrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c77e96/32.png) [@jjrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjrt)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/24 "2003-01-09T06:54:51Z")
A big fuss was made at our school one year over the books. But the main problem was that the librarian and/or teacher did not pay enough attention as to the books being checked-out with the age/grade of the child. Parents were very irate when their second graders came home with a book that had curse words in it, or horror stories, etc. I think if the book is age appropriate they should leave the books in the library. A book is the only way to take a trip anywhere in the world when you have no other way of transportation… ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/25 "2003-01-09T06:59:23Z")
My Brother Sam is Dead?! I read tha tin 6th grade for Eris’s sake. Madonna’s “Sex”, on the other hand… like that book would last two seconds in any library anywhere. Stolen! ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/26 "2003-01-09T07:00:05Z")
> [@](#): > > When I was in high school (in the early 80s, public system in California) The Catcher In The Rye was banned because of its use of four-letter words… I was in High School in California in the early 80’s and it was assigned reading in Freshman English. More liberal school district, I guess :). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/27 "2003-01-09T07:10:08Z")
> [@](#): > > A book is the only way to take a trip anywhere in the world when you have no other way of transportation… There’s also the web! (More pictures, too.) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tamerlane \* > \*\*I was in High School in California in the early 80’s and it was assigned reading in Freshman English. More liberal school district, I guess :). > > - Tamerlane \*\* No doubt! My district was in Glendale, which was famous for conservatism at the time, at least. And famous for views far to the right of conservatism, at one time. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/28 "2003-01-09T07:22:03Z")
From **stpauler** ’s link: Re: Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank > [@](#): > > an Alabama textbook committee called for the rejection of the diary on the grounds that it was “a real downer.” _Won’t somebody think of the children?_ **Robb** ’s list had at least a few, though, that I don’t mind being banned for kids under 18. _The Anarchist’s Cookbook_? In a school library? No way. Let the little buggers find it on their own, if they have to. (FTR, I’m not really thinking about big damage on a Columbine scale, but rather smaller mischief the kids will get up to, but you don’t want to be encouraging them…) ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/29 "2003-01-09T09:25:22Z")
Bridge to Terabithia should never be allowed near children. It broke my heart when I was 8, and I’ve never recovered. I’m also not exactly surprised to see that “The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein” was banned. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/30 "2003-01-09T10:39:54Z")
Wow. I went to school (9 years Catholic, 3 years public) in a very conservative area, and yet I was either required to read, or read to by the teacher, seven books off the list **Robb** linked to. And to the best of my knowledge, no one complained. Actually one of my English teachers - a nun, yet! - got a big kick out of another student’s parody of _The Catcher in the Rye_… I find it interesting that Judy Blume’s _Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret_ is all the way up at 62, but _Then Again, Maybe I Won’t_ didn’t make the top 100. The latter seems quite a bit more explicit to me… or maybe it’s Margaret’s religious skepticism that puts “her” book over the top? And why ban _Blubber_? Uncomfortable with facing the fact that kids can be cruel and teachers pretty useless? (My fifth grade teacher read these three books aloud to us, and I loved them all.) ---
**Author:** ![rogue4007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@rogue4007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogue4007)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/31 "2003-01-09T12:33:10Z")
I remember getting in awful trouble at school for writing a synopsis on "Mein Kampf ". I had read nearly all the regular books in the school library, so tried something different ---
**Author:** ![DarRRva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/53a042/32.png) [@DarRRva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarRRva)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/32 "2003-01-09T13:07:18Z")
Lord of the flies should be banned… banned for being crap. It is one of the single worst books my school has ever assigned me to read. i hate the entire thing…politics aside it is just plain old crap… and we all weep for the black heart of man… oh please spare me ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/33 "2003-01-09T13:28:43Z")
If I’m reading this right, we are looking at 6,400 challenges with an unsubstantiated assertion that “Research suggests that for each challenge reported there are as many as four or five which go unreported.”, which comes to appx. 40,000 challenges. Now, what do they mean by challenged? According to this page, “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.” Note that they are NOT bannings, and even those challenges that are laughed at by the board can still be listed. I was unable to find any information as to how many challenges actually result in a banning, but since the ALA site is pulling numbers out of their ass, I will too - I will assume that every challenge reported resulted in a successful banning (which is very likely NOT the case). So that gives us 6,400 bannings. Now we have 40,000 (unsubstantiated) challenges and 6,400 (unsubstantiated) bannings. Given America’s [17,000 school districts](http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/100_largest/discussion.asp#tableA) and over [104,000 schools](http://www.asd.com/) (public and private), we are talking about one challenge for every 3 schools and one banning for every 16.25 schools. _Over a TEN year span!_. So, unless we are talking about the worlds great religious texts, we are not exactly looking at a plague of censorship here people. :rolleyes: In regards to _Catcher_, the second most common reason to challenge a book is [improper language](http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bbwdatabase.html). So, **Masonite** , it very well wasn’t likely that they banned it for being subversive (which didn’t even make the list). In short, let’s relax here, people. If somebody throws up a challenge, fight the good fight and keep the book in the school/library. But don’t use this list as an excuse to rail against the religionists\* or whatever group you don’t like. \*I wonder if the list includes those religious books that are not supposed to appear on public school grounds, hmmmm? You know, _The Bible_, _The Koran_, etc.? That’s about 95,000 bannings right there, per title! Given this, I would definitely argue that the American Left has banned far more books in this country than the Right has ever dared hope to dream. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/34 "2003-01-09T13:45:12Z")
Oops. Forgot to put a link in. Here’s the corrected passage: “According to [this page](http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/reporting.html), “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.”” I read _Catcher_ in school in the 10th or 11th grade, I can’t remember which. But I was at Chamblee High School, which was then located in Newt Gingrich’s congressional district, in the state of Georgia. Hated it, btw. I also read _Huckleberry Finn_ (hated it too), LotF ('twas OK), and _Ethan Fromme_ (pretty good) for school as well. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/35 "2003-01-09T13:59:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JohnT \* > \*\*I wonder if the list includes those religious books that are not supposed to appear on public school grounds, hmmmm? You know, _The Bible_, _The Koran_, etc.? That’s about 95,000 bannings right there, per title! Given this, I would definitely argue that the American Left has banned far more books in this country than the Right has ever dared hope to dream. \*\* IAN American. Is this correct? Religious texts, however great their social and cultural signficance, are banned from American school libararies? Tell me it ain’t so! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/36 "2003-01-09T14:33:32Z")
Not “banned” per se, but many schools don’t have them for fear of the ever-popular lawsuit. The ALA site does list the Bible and Koran as among the “challenged” books, but never mentions the basic fact that those books are simply not available at many public schools because of the fear of lawsuits brought about by the Left in the “Church vs. State” fight of the past 40 years. That was my point. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/37 "2003-01-09T14:51:15Z")
Here’s a [link](http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLibertylist.cfm?c=139) as to the commonality of such lawsuits. To give you an idea of what a teacher has to think about if they dare want to mention the Bible as a cultural force in the West, check out [this page](http://www.veaweteach.org/bible.html). Upon reading the previous link, can you imagine why many educators and administrators don’t even want to tackle the subject, much less make it available to come up? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/38 "2003-01-09T17:07:11Z")
No offense, but your link doesnt cite anything close to a lawsuit over simply mentioning the cultural importance of the Bible, and the second link seems perfectly reasonable: you can teach about it all you want: but you can’t lead someone else’s kids in devotional worship on public time. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/39 "2003-01-09T17:48:49Z")
I would be interested in hearing the opinions of the other members on whether or not it is appropriate to ban The Turner Diaries from school libraries. Regards, Shodan ps - No, I haven’t read it. Have you? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365/40 "2003-01-09T17:57:23Z")
I went to a Catholic school, and we did “The Lord of the Flies” in Grade 7. We did “On The Beach” in Grade 8. “Tom Sawyer” was on the list of eliligible book reports as early as Grade 4. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-too-taboo-for-school/147365.md?page=3)