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As our neighbours to the south gear up for their Banned Books Week, I thought the following resources would come in handy for teachers and librarians looking for lists of challenged and banned books. These excellent yearly resources have been created by Robert P. Doyle who received the 2009 Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor Award. The books are sponsored by American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of American Publishers, National Association of College Stores and are endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

* 2008-2009
* 2007-2008
* 2006-2007
* 2005-2006
* 2004-2005
* 2003-2004

The resource for 2009 includes a bibliography of books challenged, restricted, removed, or banned in 2008-2009 as reported in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom from May 2008 through May 2009.

If you are gearing up for the "Banned Book Challenge" and are looking for ideas on what to read, find excerpts and full text to help you make your choice in 25 Banned Books You Should Read Today.

Accordian Guy offers a look at the many covers that have been used on Catcher in the Rye, a book that finds itself challenged often. According to the ALA, J. D. Salinger remains one of the top banned authors for 2000 - 2005.

Delete Censorship has a new look and some great new resources for anyone looking for information on banned books and other censorship issues. I personally like the moving book shelf. Click on an icon of a book and get the information on why it was challenged. Podcasts on issues around censorship are available for download.
The Constitution of the United States, Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and Proclamation of Freedom to Read are available in PDF format.Although this site is sponsored by a book seller, the advertising is neither subliminal nor blatantly obvious.

Alternative Reel presents some great photos of the original covers of the top 10 banned books of the 20th century.

While you are there, take a look at other menu choices that have literary value. For example, Reel Reviews of Cult Fiction

Disclaimer: Watch for links to a certain bookseller. This looks like a subtle form of advertising.

Check out the web site on censorship that I found recently. It covers all media and all kinds of censorship issues. It is a good starting place for anyone researching what is censored, why, and by whom. It gives a great overview of the whole topic. Although there is not a comprehensive list, it includes lists of some banned books, films, and music and why they were banned.

The International Freedom to Publish Committee offers the following list of books that are banned around the world. They are described as "a small representation of the many books throughout the world that are challenged, banned, or, in other, often devious ways, denied publication for political reasons."

Arenas, Reinaldo
Translated by Dolores M. Koch. Before Night Falls. Viking; Penguin. Arenas wrote this memoir in exile. None of Arenas's books is published or available in his native Cuba.

Aung Sang Suu Ky
Freedom from Fear and Letters from Burma. Penguin. The author was under house arrest in Rangoon, Myanmar (Burma), during the original publication of the first book, and neither book is published or distributed in Burma, where the author still lives.

Dowd, Siobhan.ed.
This Prison Where I live: The PEN Anthology of Imprisoned Writers. Cassell. This collection includes works by many writers who are still banned in their native country. Banned writers in the collection include Jack Mapanje (Malawi), Ahmad Shamloo (Iran), and Reza Baraheni (Iran).

Duong Thu Huong
Translated by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson. Novel Without a Name and Paradise of the Blind. Morrow; Penguin. Huong was imprisoned for seven months in Vietnam without trial on charges of "sending state secrets abroad." The "state secrets" were her novel, Novel Without a Name. As reported by the New York Times, her books are effectively banned; all the publishing houses are government publishing houses, and they will not reprint her old books nor will they publish her new books. The Times reported that booksellers are too scared to stock samizdat copies.

Farah, Nuruddin
Secrets. Arcade Publishing. Farah has been in exile from Somalia for the past twenty years. Secrets is effectively banned in Somalia.

Gyatso, Palden
Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk. Grove-Atlantic Monthly. Banned in Tibet.

Larson, Charles R.ed.
Under African Skies: Modern African Stories. Farrar; Noonday Press. An anthology that includes writers such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was recently executed in Nigeria. It includes a piece by Ngugi Wa Thiongo, whose works are banned in his native Kenya.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Translated by Max Lane. This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass. Morrow; Penguin. These four novels, which make up the Buru quartet, were composed by the author during his fourteen years of imprisonment in Indonesia without trial. Students have served prison terms of more than six years on subversion charges which resulted from an arrest for selling copies of these books.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Translated by Willem Samuels. The Mute's Soliloquy. Hyperion. A memoir of the author's years as a political prisoner. Banned in Indonesia.

Sahebjam, Freidoune
Translated by Richard Seaver. The Stoning of Soraya M. Arcade Publishing. Sahebjam lives in exile in France. Banned in Iran.

Valdes, Zoe
Translated by Sabina Cienfuegos. Yocandra in the paradise of Nada. Arcade Publishing. Banned in Cuba.

Wang Shuo
Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Playing for Thrills. Morrow; Penguin. This novel, along with all of Wang Shuo's other novels, was officially banned in China in 1996 as part of a "cultural cleansing campaign."

Wei Jingsheng
Translated by Kris Torgeson. The Courage to Stand Alone. Viking; Penguin. Wei was still in prison and incommunicado when the book was assembled and published. A Chinese-language edition was published in Taiwan and circulated around the world, but not on the mainland.

Yahia, Latif, with Karl Wendl.
I Was Saddam's Son. Arcade Publishing. After his escape from Iraq, the author sought refuge in Europe, where he was the subject of several assassination attempts. The book remains banned in Iran.

Reporter Robert Trussell of The Kansas City Star recently spoke to Lois Lowry, author of The Giver and 33 other titles.

The Giver continues to be listed on the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Challenged Books. The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal for children's literature. Twice it has been adapted for the stage. Both a musical and a movie are in development.

According to Lowry the people who would censor the book are few in number but very vocal.

The book is now in 22 languages, and as far as I know...the U.S. is the only country in which it’s undergone these challenges and controversies....So in Serbia it’s fine. In France it’s fine. In Germany they use it to introduce German children to the study of totalitarianism as a way of understanding what happened under Hitler.

Lowry was inspired in part by her experience with her mother and father.
My parents at the time were very elderly and both in a nursing home....(My mother) was extremely fragile, blind and on oxygen, but her memory was intact. She liked to talk about events in her life, including some tragic ones. My father was physically healthy but had lost his memory. So I began thinking about memory and how we use it...and how dangerous it would be if we could control it.

I’ve been dealing with this for some years now, and I still don’t have an answer...They point to two passages in the book. If they would read the book and if they had any intelligence, they could put those passages in context.

I don’t have an answer to that...but in recent years we’ve all observed a movement towards more conservative and...fundamentalist thought coming forward. But Christian churches use it a lot, and Jewish people give it as a bar mitzvah gift. So it covers all bases.

I think even literature that includes harsh reality, which good literature often does, has a role in the lives of young people.

I think the 1990 Newbery freed me to risk failure....The Newbery Committee was gutsy too. There would have been safer books. More comfortable books. More familiar books. They took a trip beyond the realm of sameness, with this one, and I think they should be very proud of that.

And all of you, as well. Let me say something to those of you here who do such dangerous work.

The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky.

But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.

Here is a web site dedicated to the book Bridge to Terabithia, a children's novel which has faced a number of challenges. The full text is available in HTML format, for use in educational settings.

The movie is due to be released in 2007. Visit Rotten Tomatoes to find reviews and more about the movie.

Update: The Lizard Queen has done quite a good analysis of the reasons this book has been challenged.