Research Guides: Banned Books Week: 2016

Banned Books Week 2016: Celebrate Diversity

"This year's Banned Books Week is celebrating diversity.

"While diversity is seldom given as a reason for a challenge, it seems, in fact, to be an underlying and unspoken factor. These challenged works are often about people and issues which include LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities—people or issues that, perhaps, challengers would prefer not to consider."

- excerpt from Banned Book Week Blog

Words Have Power

Talking Points related to the 2016 Top Ten Banned/Challenged Books

Yes, books are still banned. Five of the 10 titles on the Top Ten list were removed from the location where the challenge took place. On average, OIF finds that 10% of challenges result in the removal of the book.
The First Amendment guarantees all of us the freedom to read. The Library Bill of Rights, a foundational document of the library profession, states libraries should challenge censorship and present all points of view, for the enlightenment of all people.
For the first time in Top Ten history, a book was challenged solely because of its author. Bill Cosby’s Little Bill series was challenged because of sexual allegations against the author.
Challenges continue to target LGBT material, and there is a rise in “sexually explicit” as a challenge category. The rise in sexually explicit challenges suggests that parents are transitioning from “helicopter parents” to "Velcro parents."
The Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles the Top Ten list by documenting public challenges (challenges that are reported in the media), as well as censorship reports submitted through the office’s reporting form, in our database.

-- American Library Association

Frequently Challenged Books with Diverse Content

You can find these titles on the shelf in the SKYCTC Library.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Call Number: PZ7.A382 Ab 2007
ISBN: 0316013684
The story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. It chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Call Number: PS3551.N464 Z466 1993
ISBN: 055338001X
The moving and beautiful autobiography of a talented black woman. . . . I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood . . . have I found myself so moved . . . Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death.--James Baldwin.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Call Number: PS3555.L625 I5 1995
ISBN: 0679732764
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Call Number: PZ7.H1165 Cu 2004
ISBN: 9781400032716
John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Call Number: On the Shelf under PS3562.E353 T6 / SKYCTC Library
ISBN: 006017322X
Publication Date: 1995
Anniversary edition of an American classic features a new Introduction by the author.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Call Number: PS3608.O832 K58 2007
ISBN: 9781594489600
Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy through the horrific rule of the Taliban, The Kite Runner is the heartbreaking story of the unlikely and inseparable friendship between a wealthy Afghan boy and the son of his father's servant, both of whom are caught in the tragic sweep of history.
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Call Number: Southcentral Ky Main - Book Stacks; PN6747.S245 P4713 2007
ISBN: 9780375714832
Publication Date: 2007
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed memoir-in-comic-strips. Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Call Number: PZ7.T21723 Ro 1997
ISBN: 0140384510
With the land to hold them together, nothing can tear the Logans apart. Why is the land so important to Cassie's family? It takes the events of one turbulent year—the year of the night riders and the burnings, the year a white girl humiliates Cassie in public simply because she is black—to show Cassie that having a place of their own is the Logan family's lifeblood. It is the land that gives the Logans their courage and pride, for no matter how others may degrade them, the Logans possess soemthing no one can take away.