Captain Underpants isn’t really the most dangerous man in America, is he? But the Captain Underpants books frequently are challenged by people who object to them and would like them to be removed from libraries.
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. This year Banned Books Week is September 21-27. The week raises awareness that books can be challenged or banned, but also celebrates the fact that books most often remain on the shelves for people to choose to read. Libraries in particular support the freedom to read what we want to read.
I bet you would be surprised to learn some of the picture books that have been challenged.
Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte’s Web (talking animals are an “insult to god.”)
James and the Giant Peach (includes the word “ass”)
Where the Wild Things Are (promotes witchcraft and supernatural events)
Green Eggs and Ham (promotes homosexual seduction)
The Three Little Pigs (pigs as food might offend the Muslim community)
I could go on and on. Check the American Library Associations’ Banned Book Week website for list of books that have been challenged. http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks
Here is a list of the most challenged books of 2013:
Out of 307 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom
1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence
So, celebrate your Freedom to Read!
Read a banned book!
Happy reading,
Connie
What is “Bookworms?” It’s a fun book group for middle school kids who love to get together with friends, laugh, talk about books they’ve read and books they want to read, eat snacks, and just have a great time together at the library.
We’ve had a break for the summer, but we are starting our third year and we want YOU to join!
We meet on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 4:00 in the Meeting Room at the library. Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, September 17th. That day we will look at a bunch of books and vote on the one we want to read first. We read books that interest kids and we have fun talking about them.
This is not school! No tests, no wrong answers, no pressure. Just bring a love of books and reading, a smile and a snack if you want!
Stop by the Youth Services room to sign up or call us (883-4723 option 3) to register. Or just stop by on September 27th, or any Wednesday, and see if you like Bookworms. I’m betting you will!
Have a great start to the new school year!
Happy reading,
Connie
Have you seen the movie If I Stay, based on Gayle Forman’s book by the same title? The book and especially the movie require BOXES of tissues!
If I Stay is the story of Mia, a seventeen year old who is close to her family and is a very accomplished cellist. She has a boyfriend, Adam, who plays guitar in a rock band. On a snow day from school, her family decides to go for a ride to visit some friends. There is a catastrophic accident. Mia is outside her body, watching the dead bodies of her family. She must decide if she wants to “stay,” in other words, to live, or to “go”…to die. If she stays she will be without her whole family. Maybe she could see them in some sort of afterlife is she dies? Her body lies in the hospital in a coma as she wrestles with this dilemma.
The movie is being compared to John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. The book is similar to Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, author of Divergent. All great choices if you need a good cry!
If you have read If I Stay and seen the movie, did you know that Gayle Forman wrote a sequel to it that just might be adapted as a movie, too? Its title is Where She Went. I can’t tell you anything about the second book because if I did it would ruin the first book for you! I guess you’ll just have to read it.
All of these books are available at the Scarborough Public Library or through our awesome Minerva system.
Grab a book, a box of tissues, and enjoy the end of summer with a good cry!
Happy reading,
Connie
One of the squares on the Lucky 10 Challenge in the Teen Reading Log asks that you read a challenged book. I bet you will be surprised to know that you have probably read many challenged books, as picture books are challenged, too
Book banning is censorship and goes against our the First Amendment rights of freedom of expression. Books are rarely banned in American schools, bookstores and public libraries, but often books are challenged by people who object to something in the book, usually something religious, political, sexual or due to language.
The American Library Association and all librarians promote your freedom to choose the books you want and to express your opinions and views.
You can search online and find many banned and challenged books lists. Here are some of them:
Alexander - The Prydain Chronicles
Alexie - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Anderson - Twisted
Anonymous - Go Ask Alice
Armstrong - Sounder
Asher - Thirteen Reasons Why
Blume - Forever
Bronte - Wuthering Heights
Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Collins – The Hunger Games
Cormier - I Am the Cheese
Cushman - Midwife’s Apprentice
Curtis - Watson’s Go To Birmingham—1963
Dahl - The BFG
Friend – Lush
George - Julie of the Wolves
Green - Looking for Alaska
Harris - It’s Perfectly Normal
Henkes – Olive’s Ocean
Hinton - The Outsiders
Hopkins – Crank
Howe - Totally Joe
Huxley – Brave New World
Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird
L’Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
Lewis - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Lowry - The Giver Things
Mackler – The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things
Meyer - Twilight
Myers – Fallen Angels
Myracle – ttyl, ttfn
Naylor – Alice (series)
Nix - Shade’s Children
Orwell - Animal Farm
Parnell – And Tango Makes Three
Paterson – Bridge to Terabithia
Paulsen - Nightjohn
Pilkey – Captain Underpants (series)
Picoult – My Sister’s Keeper
Pullman- His Dark Materials trilogy
Ringgold - Tar Beach
Rowling – Harry Potter (series)
Sachar - Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
Schwartz – Scary Stories (series)
Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
Silverstein - Giving Tree
Smith – Bone (series)
Snyder - Egypt Game
Steig - Abel’s Island
Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
VonZiegesar - Gossip Girls (series)
Wilder - Little House on the Prairie
Winthrop - Castle in the Attic
DON'T FORGET: All reading logs are due August 2nd! If you turn your log in by or on August 2nd, you get to come to the Teen Summer Reading Finale Party. Ice Cream and a free book that you chose! Don’t miss this!
Also, finish up your entry for the Writes of Summer writing contest. They are due August 1st!
I’d love to hear what challenged book you read!
Happy reading,
Connie
We had a great time learning all about Forensics with Officers Nelsen, Weed and Landry. We dusted soda bottles for fingerprints, used oblique lighting to find footprints and swabbed blood for DNA samples. Each participant got a mask, gloves and booties, just like those worn by real detectives.
A huge THANK YOU to the three officers who so willingly gave their time to our teens!
Here are some pictures of the evening.
Next week (July 16) don’t miss Improv with David LaGraffe. What is Improv? Acting…on the spur of the moment! David will lead us in some improvisation games and exercises. Come get in touch with your inner actor!
And on July 23rd we’ll watch the movie “Back to the Future.” Popcorn provided by the library. July 30th will be about Aeronautics. We’ll be launching straw rockets and foam gliders.
Don’t miss out on all the fun. Call the Youth Services Room (883-4723 option 3) or stop by to sign up.
And don’t forget to keep reading. Bring in your reading logs and share with us what you are reading!
Connie
A group of teens had a blast last Wednesday night at our first Teen Program of the summer: Let’s Build a Box City!
Karen Martin, who works at SEDCO and has a Master’s degree in City Planning, helped the kids think about what buildings they might want in their town. The teens worked in groups, with each group deciding which buildings they would create from all kinds of boxes brought in by the staff at SPL. We had a library (of course!), a huge mall, a nuclear power plant, police and fire station, farm, town hall, church, school, beach, bus – and even the last phone booth in America! At the end of our time together, the kids assembled their town, deciding, with Karen’s help, what buildings went together and how best to layout a community.
Lots of good thinking and great creativity happened!
Karen Martin was very impressed and had a blast with the teens. A big “thank you” to her for sharing her time and knowledge with us.
More great summer Teen Programs are scheduled! Teen Board Games will be happening July 2nd, Let’s Get a Clue, with Detective Ron Nelsen on July 9th, Improv with David LaGraff on July 16th, a showing of the great movie, “Back to the Future” on July 23rd and learning about flight on July 30th with Trent Schreiber from 4-H.
And of course there is the final Teen Party (free book and ice cream! )for all participants in the Summer Reading Program on August 6th!
There is lots going on in the Youth Services Room at Scarborough Public library this summer. Stop by!
Happy reading,
Connie
So you read and loved John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and you saw the movie. Now what?
Here are some great books to read.
Anything by author John Green is a great choice. Here are two suggestions.
Looking for Alaska
Miles heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School. Down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. Like every other boy there, Miles falls madly in love with her. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.
An Abundance of Katherines
Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate Colin sets off on a road trip to try to find some new direction in life and create a mathematical formula to explain his relationships.
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
One of my favorite recent books.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia.
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his class mate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah’s voice recounting the events leading up to her death.
The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
Star athlete and prom king Ezra Faulkner's life is irreparably transformed by a tragic accident and the arrival of eccentric new girl Cassidy Thorpe.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
After she dies in a car crash, teenage Samantha relives the day of her death over and over again until, on the seventh day, she finally discovers a way to save herself.
Happy Reading!
Connie
