~~Banned Books Week (BBW) 2011 takes place September 24th-October 1st~~
In the past year (since Banned Books Week 2010), I have read ten books that have made the Top 100 Challenged Books for 1990-1999 and 2000-2009.
1) James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
2-6) five of the seven Harry Potter books by JK Rowling (#1-4, 7)
7-9) the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (the site only said The Hunger Games, so I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be the first or all three books)
10) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I know some of the challenges to To Kill a Mockingbird, as they are listed here. And I discussed them at length in my previous post, “BBW 2011: To Kill a Mockingbird thoughts.”
And I can guess that the reason a lot of adults challenge Harry Potter is because of the wizardry/witchcraft aspect; and maybe the dangerous situations Harry gets into, even fatal for some characters, aren’t “okay” for younger readers. I know my mom banned them in my childhood house because she apparently thought my sisters and I were too dimwitted to understand that Harry Potter is a boy from a story and that stories aren’t real.
But, as far as The Hunger Games goes, I’m really have a hard time trying to figure out what’s wrong with them. Katniss does find herself in some perilous situations and there’s that teenagers-all-trying-to-kill-each-other bit, which can be graphic. Now that I think about it, those “graphic” situations are quite worse in this than in Harry Potter. But I would have to say that I think the picture of the future of the world from this perspective would be the most controversial thing (at least in my mind). I mean, if I didn’t realize the difference between fiction and reality, I would be pretty worried that the world would come to the conditions described in this dystopic novel–moreso because those conditions led to all that violence. Okay, I can see that some adults might feel this is inappropriate for some younger readers. But, you know what? Worry about your own young reader, like my mom did when I was young. Ban it in your own house. It’s not your duty or right to keep someone else’s child/student from reading a book you think isn’t right. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… 🙂
Oh, and I honestly don’t know what could be bad about James and the Giant Peach. Anyone want to enlighten me as to what could be wrong with such a fantastical story as living in a peach. If you don’t think it’s possible to live in a giant peach, you’ll probably understand any of the bit of violence towards James mentioned at the beginning of the story isn’t a violence in reality.