Banned Books - Read All About 'Em!

Use the resources below to find the answers you need to complete this research assignment, and record your responses in your organizer. If you should finish your work before the end of the session, visit one or more of the additional links available in this annotated list to learn more about challenged and banned books.

Begin by creating a bookmark for this page. To do this:

Click & open the "Bookmarks" drop-down menu at the top of your screen.
Click"Add Bookmark".
Click "Add". (You will see "Jump-Start 8:....Researchers" added to the Bookmarks bar at the top of your screen.)

1. What is a challenged book?

2. How does it differ from a banned book?

(Visit Challenged and Banned Books to find the answers to questions 1 & 2.)

3. Why are some books challenged and/or banned?

4a. Who tends to challenge books?

4b. Why?

(Visit The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000: Challenges by Initiator, Institution, Type, and Year to find the answers to questions 3, 4a and 4b.)

5. Choose, read and think about one of the quotations below. Copy the quotation and note its author in the spaces provided in your organizer.

"It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” -- Judy Blume

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." -- Mark Twain

" Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. "-- Harper Lee

Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance."--Lyndon Baines Johnson

6. What does the quotation you chose to read and think about mean to you?

7. How does the act of challenging and/or banning a book threaten our First Amendment rights?

8. Browse the lists of banned books below. Choose five books that may be of interest to you. Write the titles and authors in the spaces provided in your organizer.

ALA: The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000
After examining this list (Are you surprised by the titles included?), check out the other links to a wealth of important information relating to your rights as a reader, in particular, "Intellectual Freedom Basics" and "Censorship and Challenges".

The Online Books Page Presents Banned Books Online
Banned Books Online offers access to the full text of the works of literature included in this "online exhibit".

OCLC: 2005 Banned Books
The books included here are featured both in OCLC's Top 1,000 and in Banned Books: Censorship Histories on World Literature. (Much more than just a bibliographic utility, OCLC features an outstanding and growing database of more than 82 million records, representing 400 languages, and is searchable by ISBN, Title, Author, Keyword, and many other fields.)

Forbidden Library: Banned and Challenged Books, by Janet Yanosko

Challenged & Banned Books - Booklists, from St. Charles (IL) Public Library

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000, from St. Charles (IL) Public
Library

Books Banned in the USA: a Public Service Report from Adler & Robin Books

9. Search for each of these titles in the NoveList database. (Enter a title search for NoveList, and you will find a link to this database.) Carefully read the abstract, subject headings, and at least one review for each book. In the space provided in the table in your organizer, take an educated guess/explain why each book might have been challenged.
(Note: Ask an IMC staff member for the User ID and Password you'll need to log in to this database.)

10. Search for each of these books in Destiny, the IMC's online catalog, to find out whether any of them is available for borrowing. Indicate Yes or No in the space provided in your organizer.

11. Next, search for these books in the NOBLE Library Catalog, the Salem Public Library's online catalog, to find out whether they are available from our local public library. Indicate Yes or No in the space provided in your organizer.

12. If a book is unavailable at the Salem Public Library, expand your search to include all public libraries. Did you find copies of it elsewhere? If so, where? Write the names of at least one other public library that owns this book in the space provided in your organizer.

13. Finally - feel free to find and borrow from the IMC's collection a challenged and/or banned book that interests you. Be sure to check it out at the Circulation Desk. Enjoy your freedom to choose the books you want to read!

To learn more about banned and challenged books, as well as about the issue of censorship, read on. Questions? Comments? Please contact Mrs. O'Keefe, at joanneokeefe@salem.k12.ma.us (This is a growing annotated resource list that will continue to be developed.)

National Coalition Against Censorship
"The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 national non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. United by a conviction that freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression must be defended, we work to educate our own members and the public at large about the dangers of censorship and how to oppose them."

"WHAT JOHNNY CAN'T READ: Censorship in American Libraries", by Suzanne Fisher Staples, The ALAN Review, Winter 1996 (vol. 23: no.2)
This thought-provoking article by the Newbery Award-winning author (her book Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind, was selected as a Newbery honor book in 1990) offers its readers valuable insight into some of the many ways in which parents, teachers, school and public librarians and other adults may create barriers between children and young adults, and the books they wish to read.

"Burned & Banned: An English Teacher Talks About the Freedom to Read-In Her Own Classroom and Across the Nation", by Carmelita Seufert. Read, Sept. 22, 2006 (vol. 56: no. 3)
(Note: Ask an IMC staff member for the User ID and Password you'll need to log in to this database.)

"Author Profile: The '3 Cs' of Chris Crutcher", by Alison M. G. Follos. Library Media Connection, Nov./Dec. 2006 (vol. 25: no. 3)
(Note: Ask an IMC staff member for the User ID and Password you'll need to log in to this database.)

Censorship: from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This detailed article offers a solid overview of the issue, as well as information about attempts to censor books, films, music and other media around the world, and a particular focus on "Censorship of Educational Sources". It also includes an extensive list of links to other relevant articles and sites, as well as a "List of Banned Books", a "List of Controversial Books", and more.

Censorship Quotations, from Ezine Articles