Reading Challenge - ALA's Top Ten most frequently challenged books for 2010

Lee Wind at I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read? has asked us to join him in reading the American Library Association's Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books for 2010. Now, the challenge isn't "official" but I feel that we should all read at least one of these (Twilight is on the list) just to prove we can read whatever we want. Check out his post about the list and join us!

The list came out in April of 2011 and he'd like to us read the books before the next list comes out. I wonder if I can count And Tango Makes Three if I read it again?

Links should go to the author's web page (thanks Lee!)


1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
~reviewed~

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence

3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit

4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit

5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence (loved it, stayed up to finish it, where is book 2?)

6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

7. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint

9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality and sexually explicit

10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence
My Review: The book ends with a chase scene with no way of knowing if Bella will survive (well, there are three more books) and I just didn't care. In fact, if Bella was to live, she should have chosen Jacob. Took me a whole week to read this.




Sometimes I have to shake my head at the reasons. Twilight for violence? Didn't you notice there were vampires? And Brave New World for racism? I haven't read it yet (how did I graduate high school?) but current racism standards of acceptability are different. I don't care what side of the fence you're on, it's a different world now ;-)


I love the "unsuited to age group" reason. I think there are a lot of parents out there that have no idea what their kids know! And if the target audience is 15-year-olds and the main character is 15-years-old, how is this unsuited to age group?

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