Banned Books Are Fun!

Did you know there's a list of books that are actually banned in some places? I'm sure you probably did but it's amazing to me the number of popular young adult fiction books I found on the list. The most amazing part to me was seeing books I actually had to read for school on these lists--books like the House on Mango Street and Kite Runner were quite popular requirements for class back in my day.

One set of books frequently challenged, or banned altogether, which shouldn't be surprising to you, are books written by John Green. Yep, every single one of them has been challenged or banned in the recent years. I find that, when a book becomes extremely popular, that is when most people tend to challenge its presence.

But how does a book become banned or what criteria does a book need to meet to even be challenged? There's no real set of reasons a book will be challenged but the most popular reasons are offensive language, sexuality, violence, drugs, racism and occult or satanic content. Of course, all of these are up to the eye of the beholder. Something you may find offensive may not be offensive to someone else.

That's where book banning becomes complicated and how, thankfully, lots of books that are challenged remain on our shelves today.

Of course, this blog entry wouldn't be complete without a lovely list compiled of frequently challenged (and awesome) books to read yourself!

1. the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
2. the Giver series by Lois Lowry
3. Looking for Alaska by John Green
4. the Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
5. the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
6. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
7. the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
8. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
9. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
10. Internet Girls series by Lauren Myracle (ttyl is the first in the series!)