Back to School: ACTIVIST ALERT!

Banned Books Week:

Celebrating the Freedom to Read--September 26−October 3, 2009

It is not too early to start planning how you can celebrate the First Amendment with your family, friends, students-- with all the young people in your life!

The American Library Association has great ideas and activities to inspire you on their website at: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Of interest: Here are the top 30 challenged books from 1990-2000 from the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000" compiled by the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom:

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz

2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling

8. Forever by Judy Blume

9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

14. The Giver by Lois Lowry

15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine

17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

19. Sex by Madonna

20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel

21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard

27. The Witches by Roald Dahl

28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein

29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry

30. The Goats by Brock Cole

For the complete list, as well as the listing for individual recent years, go to: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/index.cfm