- Read 'em…hell, I’ve taught 'em!
28 that I can remember. There are some that I think I might have read, but can’t remember reading; I didn’t count those. If I did, there’d be 32.
Fourteen. And at least five or six more if I could count seeing the movies that were made from them.
Why is James and the Giant Peach on the list? Or Tom Sawyer?
- But I’m a lit major and librarian.
It’s not that the libraries challenge the books, people do. Parents annoyed about books in the school libraries is most common, but people challenge books at public libraries too. Sometimes it has been because it was a small library and all the books were shelved together, so parents objected to their kids seeing The joy of gay sex next to Ella enchanted or something. Sometimes people just object to having certain books in the public library at all.
A challenge doesn’t mean a book has been taken off the shelf. You challenge a book by telling the librarian you object to its presence in the library, usually in writing (possibly on the same forms that might be available for comments and purchase requests). The librarian should then review the book and whether it really belongs in the library–for example, sometimes a book for high school kids winds up in an elementary school library, and maybe it really doesn’t belong in that particular collection. But most of the time, the librarian comes back with an explanation of why the book is appropriate for the collection.
Children’s books are more often challenged than books for adults because people care a lot more about what their kids are reading than about what their neighbors are reading. They are far more likely to get upset about swear words or sex in their kids’ reading, so an adult book has to be really blatant to be challenged.
And one of the “where’s Waldo?” books had a topless woman on the beach! :eek:
- W00t.
8 or 9, because I’m not sure about one.
25 and a third. I read the first of Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice). It was one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. I also skimmed the last book of the Earth’s Children by Auel.
I have no intention of reading anything Madonna writes. Or consuming any of her artistic endeavors in any medium.
Fourteen, and mostly in school.
I thought some of these were considered classics?!
19, with 2 on the “to read” pile…
mm
19 plus one Harry Potter book.
Really…like others have said, I read most of these FOR school either as assignments from teachers or as book report books i chose myself.
Rock on Robert Cormier. He’s my favorite author and he’s on there THREE times. Props to that smut-peddler Judy Blume too.
I am surely corrupt.
- Most read on my own and not result of class assignment
Nineteen.
No, wait. Twenty-one.
Twenty-eight. And I turned out all screwy.
Twenty eight, and that’s not including any Harry Potter. If you’ll excuse me, I must go now: virgins don’t sacrifice themselves, you know.
- What I found interesting was the sex ed book for girls was so much higher on the list than the same book for boys. What gives?
Think of who is probably doing the challenging. A lot of fundamentalists get VERY upset about the thought of of females knowing their own bodies well enough to be able to use reliable birth control, to put off having children, or not having children at all. A lot of these same people think that if girls don’t know about “dirty things” then the girls won’t experiment, and will keep themselves pure.
As for me, I gave my daughter a copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves when she was old enough to read and understand most of the words. I pointed out some of the things that I thought she should know, told her to keep the book in her room and read it frequently, and that I’d try to answer any questions she had.
Of course, I also let her watch my copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show when she was an older teen.
I’m not sure how many I’ve read. I’d guess about 10.
I do wonder what exactly a “challenge” is. I think we debated this last year. For instance, I have no problem with a school library placing a book such as “Forever” in a seperate group for older students. There are kids who would check it out thinking it is another book such as Fudge.
Twenty. Most are ones I’ve read aloud to my kids. Actually some of them are most appropriate that way.
Tom Sawyer probably for the casual use of the N-word.