Have you read a banned book today?

September 27 through October 4 is the American Library Association's Banned Books Week. Over 400 books were challenged and/or banned in 2007! These were the ten most common:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
7. TTYL, by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

I like to see which classics are the most challenged, too, since I may end up teaching a few of them someday. In 2007, they were:

1. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
3. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
4. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
7. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
8. Steppenwolf: A Novel by Hermann Hesse
9. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
11. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
12. All Quiet on the Western Front
13. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
14. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
15. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
16. Common Sense: and Related Writings (The Bedford Series in History and Culture) by
Thomas Paine
17. The Old Gringo: A Novel by Carlos Fuentes
18. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Some of the challenged classics even made our own list of favorite books! I'm certainly not going to head the local chapter of the J.D. Salinger or Kurt Vonnegut fan clubs, but far be it from me to prevent someone else from reading their works.

I find it so interesting that many of the same people who challenge books also call for less government intervention in their lives. Or, even more disturbing, they pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they're going to cling to. Just try and pry that Second Amendment from their "cold, dead hands," but to heck with that pesky First Amendment.

This week, while you still can, exercise your freedom to read! And click here to find out what else you can do.