Banned Books Week 2012
For the past thirty years, at the end of September, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom holds Banned Book Week celebrating the 
freedom to read. Banned Book Week is an opportunity to bring communities together: librarians, publishers, journalists, teachers and readers of all kinds, and remember the importance of the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unpopular.
A new list is compiled featuring the most challenged books each year. The 10 most challenged titles of 2011 were:
- ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence - My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint - Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit - What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit - Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: offensive language; racism
Throughout this week, the Cedar Rapids Public Library will celebrate Banned Books Week with a series of posts from library staff on their favorite banned book. Also, visit the Library this week and discover the variety of challenged books on our display, check one out, and rip into it. Let us know what your favorite banned or challenged book is and why you think it’s an important discussion to have with each other.
For more information on Banned Books Week, visit http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/.