Banned Book: FLAMER

Today is the last day of Banned Books Week 2025 so I made it just under the wire with this review. 

Flamer by Mike Curato is a graphic novel based on some experiences from the author's life. It was the 10th most banned book in 2024.

It is the summer before high school. Aiden is fourteen, a boy on the cusp of manhood. He still has not has his growth spurt so he is short and pudgy for his age. He is constantly teased for his physique and bullied because he doesn't act like other boys think he should. Now at Boy Scout camp for the summer, Aiden finds that bullying hasn't stopped at the school doors. He has made some friends at camp, including his tent mate, Elias. In fact, he keeps having dreams about Elias.

Boys keep calling Aiden "gay" but it can't be true. "I know I’m not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They’re mean, and scary, and they’re always destroying something or saying something dumb or both. I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe."

At one point in the book Aiden is so distraught by his attraction toward Elias, the feeling of being abandoned by everyone he cares about, and the near constant bullying that he decides to kill himself.

He makes his way to camp chapel where he ends up wrestling with his soul eventually life winning out over death. The scene was a powerful reminder to any readers that all people are deserving of love and acceptance and joy.

I thought long and hard after I finished the story about how desperate a person must feel to want to end their own life and how importance it is that we accept people for what they are and not try to make everyone conform to some gender standard that is out of reach for most. Then I wondered at the type of person who would want to ban this book, making it not only not available for their child to read, but also so no child could read it.What if that child needed to read this book so they didn't feel alone? Some people are so heartless and thoughtless. I know some people are so frightened that their child might "become" gay by reading a book like this they must do whatever it takes to keep the book away from them. Obviously these people didn't read the book, or they would have seen how agonized Aiden was about his own sexual awareness and identity. This was not a choice for him. He was born this way!

I highly recommend the book. Read it even though Banned Books Week is over.

My rating: 4.75 stars 

-Anne

Banned Book: GENDER QUEER

Gender Queer is a graphic memoir written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe. It recounts the author's journey from childhood related to gender identity.

After coming out as nonbinary in 2016, Kobabe, a graduate of the California College of the Arts with an MFA in Comics, began drawing black and white illustrations about gender identity and published them on Instagram. These cartoons became the basis for this book, Gender Queer. Kobabe, who prefers the Spivak pronouns: e/em/eir, stated e was motivated to create something to explain gender to eir parents after coming out.

The book, published in 2019, was met with critical acclaim. 

• In the February 2019 issue of Publisher's Weekly the reviewer said, "this heartfelt graphic memoir relates, with sometimes painful honesty, the experience of growing up non-gender-conforming. [...] This entertaining memoir-as-guide holds crossover appeal for mature teens (with a note there's some sexually explicit content) and is sure to spark valuable discussions at home and in classrooms" (PW). 
• And the reviewer for School Library Journal that same year called it a, "great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand"(SLJ). 
• In 2022, Sophie Brown commented that  "Gender Queer isn't an especially easy book to read but it is a powerful one. [It] will be a comforting voice from someone who has walked the same paths"(GeekMom).

In 2020 it was awarded an Alex Award, an award given out to adult books with cross-over appeal for teens. It also won the Stonewall Award, for books with a LGBTQIA theme for teens or children. These awards led to the book becoming widely available in high school libraries. 

Gender Queer was the focus of many book challenges and book bans in 2021 and has remained on that list ever since. According to the American Library Association it was the most challenged book of 2021, 2022, and 2023 and the second most challenged book in 2024. Admittedly the book has some sexually explicit drawings and descriptions. A few even made me squirm. But what I appreciated so much about the book was the candidness and the author's honesty about eir own confusions surrounding gender identity. This was clearly not a person who woke up one day and decided to try on being gay or trans or bi or as asexual. This is a person who has struggled a lifetime to accept and embrace eir self. 

Kobabe published an opinion piece in the Washington Post which was partially reprinted on the ALA blog:

“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are. Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health” (Kobabe).

I am so glad I read this book for Banned Books Week 2025, which is happening right now. It opened my eyes and gave me additional empathy about individuals' gender identity issues. It helped cement my feelings that we all need to find ourselves in books, no matter our race, creed, gender, or religion.

My rating: 5 stars.

-Anne

Banned Books Week is coming October 5-11. Are you ready?

Banned Books Week is just a few days away. 

This year's theme is a good one: 

CENSORSHIP IS SO 1984! READ FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

Have you marked your calendars? 

Have you determined what banned book you hope to read during the event? 

What action you plan to take in support of reading and against censorship?

List: Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2024

Stats:

72% of challenges come from outside pressure groups and government entities. Only 16% of challenges are made by concerned parents, and 12% are other. It is a very small minority of people who are bringing the vast majority of book challenges. "Eleven people were responsible for 60% of challenges to books in 2021 nationwide. ELEVEN!" (Source: NPR)

Frequently challenged books

Book Banning attempts have risen sharply over the past ten years.

Resources:

American Library Association (ALA): Library Bill of Rights

From the Unite Against Book Bans Toolkit
One parent in Wisconsin was responsible to 444 temporary or permanent book bannings in a school district. ONE! (NPR) Why should one parent say what books other kids should not read?

My Plan

1. Highlight a book I think everyone should read:

Banned Together: Our Fight For Readers' Rights edited by Ashley Perez
A collection of essays, illustrations, stories, memoirs, graphic novels about how book banning has impacted these YA authors. I read it a few weeks ago and found it to be tremendously impactful. Check to make sure your high school and public libraries have a copy of it. If not, ask them to buy it/offer to buy it for them. (Click on title to read more.)

2. Read a frequently challenged/banned book:

Gender Queer: a Memoir by Maia Kobabe
This book is one of the top challenged books of 2024. It is a graphic memoir (illustrated.)

3. Create a post (this post!) about Banned Books week and make a plan, which includes checking out the resources. 

If you would like to do the same thing but also want to save time, you can copy the top half of this post and paste it to your blog. Let's get the word out.

4. Place a few banned books on hold at my library. This will help the library administration know to keep buying these types of books due to their increased circulation.

5. Work this puzzle of Banned Books

-Anne

2022 Banned Books Week Wrap Up

 

Banned and Challenged Books, Banned Books Week, ALA

"Authors Speak Up in Defense of Banned Books". Publisher's Weekly, Sept, 20, 2022.

A library board in Wellington, Colorado votes to ban book bans. Book Riot, Sept. 20, 2022

"Book bans reflect outdated beliefs about how children read." Conversations, Sept. 20, 2022.

"Here's Why I'm Celebrating Banned Books Week." Barack Obama, Sept. 23, 2022

"[Book banning] is a mistake. Not only is it important for young people to see themselves represented in the pages of books, but it’s also important for all of us to engage with different ideas and points of view." -Barack Obama

Beau of the Fifth Column on Sept. 20th on Banned Books Week, Censorship, Targeting of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors, and more.

“The wave of book bans that has swept across our country in recent years is a direct attack on First Amendment rights and should alarm every American who believes that freedom of expression is a fundamental pillar of our democracy,” said Chairman Jamie Raskin. (House Committee on Oversight and Reform, on resolution to recognize Banned Books Weeks.)

“Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” ALA Theme for the 2022 Banned Books Week

 

Thanks to Notes in the Margin for the idea for this post.

Read a banned book this week!

-Anne

Banned Books Week Sept.18-24

Banned Books Week used to be the hoppin'-est week in my high school library. I would make big displays which included lists of frequently banned or challenged books, like the Bible and Where's Waldo. Kids would come in prepared to do battle with me and leave with a clearer understanding of how banning books, any books, impacts us all. This year it is more vital than ever as news stories report any instances of book banning attempts as conservative, MAGA-ish parents rail against any books which are viewed as supporting LGBTQ+ students, Muslims or other non-Christian religions, anything which might make their dear children feel bad about themselves in terms of our history of slavery or discrimination. Ugh. It has been an awful year for this. Here is an article in the Washington Post, if you want more details about how book banning/challenge numbers are up in 2021/22. (WaPo)

Every year at this time I resolve to read a banned book from the ALA's most banned/challenged list for the year. But since I got a late start I've decided to give myself a pass, since I read The Complete Maus earlier this summer. It is a graphic biography about the artist's father, a Holocaust survivor. It is insane that someone thinks banning a book about the Holocaust is a good idea. Here is my review, if you want to take a look. Here are the top ten challenged books from 2021:

I've read all but #1, #2, and #9 already.

Often times it is parents who want to censor libraries by banning books they haven't even read! This year parents didn't stop at the newcomers but went after some stalwart classics like The Diary of Anne Frank, Maus, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Some public libraries have had to rely on donations from rich patrons to keep their doors open because city councils have decided to limit their funding because the libraries have copies of controversial books on their shelves. Gasp.

There are lots of articles about book banning and censorship this week. Find a few to read or peruse a few lists of frequently banned books. I think I will spend a little time with this one: 50 Books to Read (While You Still Can)

Here is a fun idea.  Read a banned book in a public place. Let others see you and notice the book you are reading. 

Check out the resources for Banned Books Week at the American Library Assoc. webpage.

-Anne

Banned Books Week -- Sept. 26-Oct. 2

 

Banned Books Week

Sept. 26-Oct 2, 2021

Plan ahead!

Read a banned or censored book and blog about it.

Use these BBW promotional tools from the ALA on your social media page.

Make a list of your Top Ten favorite banned/challenged books. Post it someplace.

Play Banned Books Trivia with your friends, students, family. (You can download the questions for the game merely by inputting your name and email address.)

 Librarians: Use these "Shelf Talker" flyers. Have students help you fill them out and place them properly on the shelf above a previously banned or challenged book.

Book store owners: Do the same thing as above except have your employees help you fill out and place tags.

Print off and post Censorship by the Numbers. 

Attend live Banned Books Week Coalition events on Facebook. For details head over to the Banned Books Week Home Page, sponsored by The American Library Association. 

Check the Top Ten Most Challenged Books lists from previous years here. (The only two I haven't read on last year's list are: George by Alex Gino and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendon Kiely. time to add those to my reading list!)

Do your homework. Figure out why your favorite books have been challenged.

Ten of my favorite banned or challenged books are:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian / Alexie

To Kill a Mockingbird / Lee

Eleanor and Park / Rowell

Looking for Alaska / Green

The Hate U Give / Thomas 

The Harry Potter series / Rawling

The Holy Bible

The Kite Runner / Hosseini 

Bless Me, Ultima / Anaya

The Hunger Games / Collins 

 

 

-Anne

Banned Books Week Review: I am Jazz

Banned Books Week display at the Puyallup Public Library. Teeny-tiny versions of banned books are in book jail.

Today I made a trip downtown to pick up two books on the 2017 Most Challenged Books list published by the ALA: I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings and Drama by Raina Telgemeier. Both were sitting on the hold shelf waiting for me. I checked them out after stopping by and chatting with the librarians about my choices and their display. I was so excited to get to reading them but I didn't check them out carefully before leaving the library. Drama was a Spanish-language version. Ha! Imagine my disappointment. I don't speak Spanish so I may even have to swing by a bookstore to get this one if I want it before the end of the week. Sigh. But I was able to read I Am Jazz quickly as it is designed for young readers.

Jazz describes herself as a person with a girl brain and a boy body. She never felt comfortable wearing boys clothes or doing "boy-like" activities. Her whole life she has loved things like mermaids, dancing, makeup, singing, back flips, and wants to be a pop star. When she was young, her family would allow her to wear girl clothes at home but not out in public. Finally one day her parents took her to meet a doctor who explained that Jazz is transgender. Since that time her family has accepted her as she is, as do most people at school once they get to know her.

The book is short, probably around 20 pages long, with darling illustrations by Shelagh McNicholas. If I was a parent of young children this would definitely be on my family reading list. Even if you don't have a concern that your child is transgender, it is a beautiful book about how to treat people who are different. It is based on the true life experiences of Jazz Jennings, who is now an advocate for transkids everywhere.

So why was I Am Jazz challenged and possibly banned so many times last year? The only thing I can think of is that some parents are afraid if they mention words like "transgender" or "homosexual" or "Buddhist", etc., that their children will become one. I Am Jazz was published in 2014 and has been on the top ten list of challenged books for each year since then.

Run to your public library this week and check out a banned books. It will encourage your library to make more purchases of banned books in the future!

For the complete list of the top ten challenged books of 2017 follow this link to the ALA webpage.

TTT: My Favorite Banned/Challenged Books

Top Ten Tuesday: I'm going off the board this week and instead of listing favorite authors' books I haven't read, I am listing my favorite books which have been banned or challenged over the past thirty years. I used these lists from the American Library Association to make my selections: Top 100 Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999; Top 100 Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009; Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged books per year (2010-2017.)

Listed in no particular order.

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
2. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
3. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
4. The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
6. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
7. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya
8. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
10. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
11. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
12. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
13. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
14. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
15. Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins
16. Looking for Alaska by John Green
17. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
18. The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
19. The Holy Bible
20. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
21. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

In case you didn't know, this week is Banned Books Week (September 23-29). We all need to be mindful of how damaging it can be to all books and authors if any books are banned. I make a point of reading a banned book every year at this time just to make a move for freedom. 

This week I hope to read at least two books on the most frequently banned books of 2017 that I haven't read already. The possibilities are:  Drama by Raina Telgemeir; I am Jazz by Herthel and Jennings; Sex is a Funny Word by Silverberg. I will try to obtain them from the public library, which encourages libraries to purchase books on the banned list so more people will read them!

Join me? Select a banned book this week to read. Check out the links above for suggestions.  You'll be surprised how many of your favorite books are on the lists. 

Banned Books Week, Sept. 23-29, 2018

September 23-29, 2018

What book will you be reading next week? 

Consider reading a banned/challenged book.

You could select one of the top ten most challenged books of 2017.
(Watch the video below for the titles.)

or 

select one of the ten banned books we should read again and again. 

(Click on the hyperlink here: Signature)

or

Pick a banned/challenged book from this megalist. (Wikipedia)

and visit the American Library Association for a lot more suggestions of ways to get involved.

(ALA)

Spread the word!

Read banned books!

Slaughterhouse-Five---reading a banned book for Banned Books Week

It is Banned Books Week. Every year at this time I like to exert my freedom-to-read-what-I-want by selecting a book which has been, at one time or another, a banned or challenged book. This year I selected Kurt Vonnegut's famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. This is one of the great ironies of life---the book which is around 250 pages long, is actually a very short audiobook. It was only 6 hours long which I was able to complete in a just few trips back and forth to see my new grandson. What took be so long to listen to this classic, identified as one of Modern Library Top 100 novels of the 20th Century?

Whenever I read a book which has been identified as a banned book, I find myself contemplating this question as I read, "Why would anyone want to ban this book?" The answer was very apparent to me with this one.  Published in 1969, at the height of both the anti-war and the hippie movements, Slaughterhouse-Five is very trippy. In typical Vonnegut style, the book is often vulgar and unconventional.  He doesn't even try to make it acceptable to prudes and over-protective parents who think they can save their children and society in general by not allowing their children, or anyone's children, from reading the book. Yet, Slaughterhouse-Five begs to be discussed and taught in a classroom setting. As soon as someone says to children that they have to read something, out come the folks who want to ban the book.

If you don't know anything about Slaughterhouse-Five, I encourage you to read the summary of it. Here is a pretty good summary at Goodreads. Vonnegut served in the Second World War and was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the fire-bombing of the city by the Allies. Though not autobiographical, one gets the distinct impression that Vonnegut knew what he was talking about as we see the events as they unfold for Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim becomes completely unstuck from time as he travels back and forth from the events in 1944 in Dresden and 1967 when he is abducted to the planet Tralfamadore by aliens, and points of time in between. The reader is never quite sure if Billy is just crazy or if he really was abducted because the story, like Billy's life is so fractured.

This absurdist novel was immediately embraced by a country in the midst of another war, Vietnam, in 1970. War is absurd and the little guy, who is the one who fights and dies, is truly the pawn of those in power who sit back and make their moves. This message rang true to America's counter-culturalists, and I suspect it would ring true today as people contemplate the bluster we are hearing from Trump and President of North Korea. But, unfortunately, I don't think the book is read or taught often anymore. This is one of the big problems for a banned or challenged book---school boards are much less likely to approve books which will draw criticism from parents (tax-payers.)

Since I listened to the audiobook I had no idea that the first chapter wasn't actually a preface. In the first chapter Vonnegut talks as himself about the writing process and how he finally decided how to put his story of the fire-bombing of Dresden forward. Unlike most novels the reader is always aware of Vonnegut in this one since he is the narrator. About the book Vonnegut said, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."  The novel, as absurd and humorous as it is, seems extremely impactful and, I suspect, memorable. It may have taken me forty-seven years to get to it, but I am glad I finally read it and will recommend it to others to do the same.

Read a banned book! Words have power! Here is a list of Top Ten Challenged books last year:

TTT: My favorite banned/challenged books of the past five years

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and Bookish

Top Ten Tuesday: (I am going off the chart since it is Banned Books Week, September 24-30)

My favorite YA frequently banned/challenged books, 2012-2016 

(See list at ALA)

1. Looking for Alaska written by John Green
   Reasons: challenged for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to “sexual experimentation”
2. Eleanor & Park written by Rainbow Rowell
   Reason: challenged for offensive language
3. This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
   Reasons: challenged because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
   Reasons: offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”)
5. The Holy Bible
   Reasons: religious viewpoint
6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying”
7. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
   Reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group, violence
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “date rape and masturbation”
9. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
10. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
    Reasons: occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
    What is your favorite banned/challenged book?
11. 

Banned Books Week Sept 24-30---Celebrate the right to read!

This week I am going to read a banned book.

Why?

Because I can and because I think censorship hurts us all.

To make my selection I visited the American Library Association's frequently banned or challenged lists from the past few years. From these lists, I will select a book I haven't read before. 

Which of these should I select? 

• Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
  Reasons: challenged because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit, and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint
• Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
  Reasons: offensive language, unsuited for age group
• Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
  Reason: political viewpoint, racism, violence
• A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard
  Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group
• And Tango Makes Three, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
  Reasons: anti-family, homosexuality, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “promotes the homosexual agenda”
• Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
  Reasons: homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”)
• Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
  Reasons: religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence
• The Holy Bible
  Reasons: religious viewpoint

All these books have been on the top ten banned/challenged books list at least once in the past five years. Ridiculous!

I always told my students, if they don't like a book that they checked out, bring it back. But don't make a fuss about it. Just because you don't like doesn't mean it isn't a good one for someone else.

In addition to reading one or more of the above books, I will listen to an audiobook of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It was the 46th most challenged book of the decade, 2000-09.

Join me. Read a banned book this week!

Banned Books Week September 21-27

This list represents some of the books that we challenged, banned, or restricted in 2013 and 2014, as reported to the Newsletter for Intellectual Freedom. Most of these books have won awards, yet they continue to draw ire from people intent on banning books.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Published in September 2007.

Won the National Book Award in 2007.

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Published in 1972.

Awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2002.

On the US Academic Decathlon list of 2009.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Published in 1985.

Won the 1985 Governor General's Award in Canada

and the very first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Published in 1999.

A New York Times Best Seller for 71 weeks.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Published in 2005.

Won the Printz Award in 2006.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Published in 1970.

Morrison is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and has been awarded a Nobel laureate.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Published in 2013.

A Printz Honor in 2014.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Published in 2000.

Time Magazine Comix of the Year in 2000.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

1982

A Pulitzer prize and National Book Award winner in 1983.

,

Banning books for religious reasons

Since it is Banned Books Week I put out a big bookmark for my patrons that lists some of the most commonly banned/challenged books. The top book on the list is the Bible. Admittedly its placement at the top of the list was a bit provocative on my part but I placed it there to stir discussion and to make kids think.

But then I started thinking, the Bible is probably the most banned and censored book in publication today merely because it has been in publication for such a long time. In the early days church officials couldn't even agree on what books to include or leave out of it. And certain translations have been viewed by various sects as less worthy. One congregation in North Carolina even burned the Living Bible. I guess they thought it wasn't hard enough for them to understand.

When Tynsdale first translated the Bible into English in 1524 copies were smuggled into England from Germany. The church publicly banned and burned the copies they found. Despite these actions more copies were smuggled in and circulated. How is that for irony? Banning the first English translation of the Bible in England where they speak English! Unfortunately things didn't turn out so well for Tynsdale. He was arrested, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake. Those church book-banners were serious about their role as suppressors of God's written word. Isn't that sad?

Noah Webster, of dictionary-writing fame, published the first expurgated Bible in America in the mid 1800s. Apparently he made thousands of alterations to the Bible removing bits he thought were indecent. That edition of the Bible was available from 1833-1841. I was brought up in a Christian home and was taught that the Bible was the holy word of God. Hmm...I guess some editions were more holy than others.

Fortunately the Bible has not really suffered at the hand of man. It has sold more copies than any other book ever published and all of the efforts at censorship over the years have had little or no impact on its influence today.

Other books that have been banned, challenged or censored for religious reasons:
-On The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
-Satanic Verses by Salmon Rushdie
-Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
-His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
-Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
-Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
-The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
-The Witches by Roald Dahl
-Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

The last book I mentioned Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan was widely criticized on Fox News because the author is a Muslim. How could a Muslim, even though he was an academic who studies and teaches religion, possibly be qualified to write about Jesus, the Fox commentator asks? Thanks to this interview which you can view here, the book zoomed to the top ten best selling books on the NYT list this summer. If the people at Fox News thought Aslan's book wasn't worthy of being read, this interview had the opposite effect and caused many, many more people to purchase it to see what all the fuss was about. Ha!

Some time after his book, The Golden Compass, made it onto the ALA list of most challenged books for the year, Philip Pullman said this in an interview about religion and censorship:

Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of solace, artistic expression, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed...

He went on to talk about how the controversy over his book actually moved interested readers to search for the book.  If they couldn't find it at the library, they went to the bookstore and bought it.

The inevitable result of trying to ban something--book, film, play, pop song, whatever--is that far more people want to get a hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don't the censors realize this?

Source: Bald, Margaret. Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds, 3rd Ed. Facts on File: New York, 2011.

I really like this poster even though the dates are wrong. Notice if you drop off the B and D it spells my name! That would make it: " I'm with Anne."