How Can Books be Banned?

A new blog that I found yesterday through The Secret is in the Sauce blog is The Tale of a Kansas Girl....you have to go check her out she is hilarious! Besides her personal blog she also has a book nook blog that she contributes to and they did a post on banned books and she listed the books she had read off of the list...

She posted it because this week is (Explore) Banned Book Week....

I thought it would be interesting to check out the 100 Most Challenged Books of 1990--2000, which gives you the top 100 books "challenged" throughout a mere 10 year span. This doesn't even count the books banned before this time period...how many have read 1984 or Catch 22 or The Grapes of Wrath or The Call of the Wild? I HAVE!!!! Here are the books I have actually read off the challenged list:

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

21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

32. Blubber by Judy Blume

38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

And these ones are books that I have read snippets of over the years:

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

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

18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

What is funny to me is that most of these books that I've read off this list were books I read as a youngster...well before ending elementary school...I mean come on why are you putting the Judy Blume books on this list? As a future teacher and a book enthusiast (At this point in my life there is probably hundreds of books in my possession) I find it hard to imagine that anyone could make the decision to ban a book and deem it inappropriate for any reader. I believe that there are books that shouldn't be read by younger children, but that is a decision that needs to be made between the parent and the child...only they can determine their maturity level, their level of comprehension and then factoring in their beliefs about the types of material in books. If I have children I don't ever want them to feel as if they can't read a book because someone has determined it to be..."inappropriate"! I also want to know what are the guidelines that are followed in determining what books should be banned? Hmmmm...inquiring minds want to know!

How do you feel about this? What books have you read off this list?

“[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” ~~Judy Blume