On Display at Clarkston: Display -- October 2011 A

Featured Web Sites

Censored: Wielding the Red Pen
https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/
exhibits/show/censored
This exhibition hopes not so much to judge censors and censorship but instead to provoke questions. Every day some form of censorship occurs in the United States.
Source: https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/
exhibits/show/censored

Cromwell, Sharon
Banning Books from the Classroom: How to Handle Cries for Censorship
Education World. http://www.educationworld.com
/a_curr/curr031.shtml
During Banned Books Week, people are exhorted to fight against banning and censorship. Yet do opponents of banning books believe that any book is appropriate for teaching in school? And where should the line be drawn between books that are appropriate and inappropriate? A number of experts have explored these and related questions of censorship.
Source: http://www.educationworld.com
/a_curr/curr031.shtml

Guideline on Censorship: Don't Let it Become an Issue in Your Schools
National Council of Teachers of English
http://www.ncte.org
/positions/statements/
dontletitbecome
National Council of Teachers of English Synopsis: An old article that describes in detail the process of material challenges in public schools and what teachers and administrators can do to prevent and defuse them.
Source: Eileen H. Kramer

Parent Ratings of Richland School District Books
http://thebookbuzz.org/
A site that provides material to fuel challenges against books in elementary, high, and middle school English and social studies classes, and also in school libraries. A window to the way advocates of censorship think and act.
Source: Eileen H. Kramer

Parents Against Bad Books in Schools
Controversial and Challenged Books in Schools
http://www.pabbis.com/
This site announces: "You might be shocked at the sensitive, controversial and inappropriate material that can be found in books in K-12 schools. Both in the classroom and library. Parents should be aware of what their children can or must read in school to decide whether it is appropriate for them or not." This site offers a list of and excerpts from controversial material to aid parents in deciding whether to challenge such items.
Source: http://www.pabbis.com and Eileen H. Kramer

RR
When Grassroots Go Wrong: Parents Censoring Books in Richland, Washington
Secondary Worlds
http://secondaryworlds.com
A brief article that describes and critiques the site: Parent Ratings of Richland School District Books.
Source: Eileen H. Kramer

Staples, Susanne Fischer
What Johnny Can't Read: Censorship in American Libraries. The Alan Review
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/
ejournals/ALAN/
winter96/pubCONN.html
Readable article that laments the rise of censorship in public libraries in the 1990's. Also talks about the social and political groups that sometimes back pro-censorship parents as well as such parents' motivation.
Eileen H. Kramer

Trelease, Jim
Censors & Childen's Lit.
http://www.trelease-on-reading.com
/censor_entry.html
Read about the background and context of notable, recent book challenges in the public schools.
Source: Eileen H. Kramer

To see other displays stop by the DISPLAY ARCHIVE

Reading a book can free your mind, but censors feel its their place to tell you what to think. This display consists of books that have been "challenged" mainly in public schools and also web sites that discuss censorship or show its workings. The inspiration for this page's logo comes from the challenged work And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.

Books Available at the JCLRC

Alexie, Sherman.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. New York: Little Brown, 2007.
Call Number: PS3551.L35774 A27 2007
Synopsis: Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Angelou, Maya.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House, 2002.
Call Number: PS3551.N464 Z466 2002
Synopsis: In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Baker, Larry
The Flamingo Rising. New York: Knopf, 1997.
Call Number: PS3552.A43146 F53 1997
Synopsis: What could be more all-American than a longstanding family feud between an earnest funeral director and the visionary, grandly egotistical owner of a drive-in movie theater in Florida called the Flamingo? Especially when the owner's son, who narrates the tale, is an adopted Korean boy named Abe. And the owner's daughter, Louise, also Korean, overcomes a slight limp to become a famous movie star. And the son falls for the daughter of the funeral director in one more classically star-crossed romance.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Boyle, T. Caraghessan
The Tortilla Curtain. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Call Number: PS3552.O932 T67 1996
Synopsis: Go tell it in the valley: Boyle's newest novel is, according to the publicist, "a timely, provocative account" of immigration in central California.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Brashares, Ann.
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood. New York: Delacorte Press, 2007.
Call Number:PS3602.R387 F67 2007
Synopsis: As their lives take them in different directions, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget discover many more things about themselves and the importance of their relationship with each other.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Burroughs, Augusten.
Running with Scissors: A Memoir. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002.
Call Number:PS3552.U745 Z477 2006
Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Chobsky, Stephen.
The Perks of being a Wallflower. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.
Call Number: PS3553.H3469 P47 1999
Synopsis: This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares.
Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk

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Chopin Kate
The Awakening and Other Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Call Number: PS1294.C63 A6 2008
Synopsis: Presents the 1899 novel about Edna Pontellier, a Victorian-era wife and mother who is awakened to the full force of her desire for love and freedom when she becomes enamored with Robert LeBrun, a young man she meets while on vacation, and includes thirty-two short stories by Kate Chopin, drawn from throughout her career.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Collins, Suzanne.
The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008.
Call Number: PZ7.C6837 Hun 2008
Synopsis: In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Drill, Esther, Healther McDonald, and Rebecca Odes.
Deal with it!: A Whole New Approach to your body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.
Call Number: HQ798 .D75 1999
Following a recent trend, Web gurus Drill, McDonald and Odes have translated their highly popular Web site, gURL.com, into print, taking a holistic approach to those perennial teen concerns: changing bodies, emotions, desires and lives.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Ehrenreich, Barbara
Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in Boom-time America. New York: Henry, Holt, 2001.
Call Number:HD4918 .E375 2001
Synopsis: In an attempt to understand the lives of Americans earning near-minimum wages, Ehrenreich works as a waitress in Florida, a cleaning woman in Maine, and a sales clerk in Minnesota.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Foer, Jonathan Safran.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Call Number:PS3606.O38 E97 2005
Synopsis: Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center attacks, searches the five boroughs of New York City for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Frank, Anne.
The Diary of Anne Frank. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Call Number:DS135.N6 F73313 2003
Synopsis: An innocuous gift, a diary a girl treasures. She writes in it, "I will call you, Kitty." A scrawny teenage girl begins writing her way into the hearts and minds of mankind around the world. This book will be her legacy and her memorial.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Fuentes, Carlos.
Aura. Mexico: Edicones Era, 1962.
Call Number:PQ7297.F793 A85 1971
Synopsis: This novella, described as perfect in its narrative and thematic symmetry by the famous Mexican writer, Octavio Paz, explores the corporeality of aging, the eternalness of desire, and the struggle against mortality through childbirth, medicinals, memory, and narrative.
Source: http://litmed.nyu.edu

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Green, Jonathan and Nicholas J. Karolides.
The Encyclopedia of Censorship. New York: Facts On File, 2005.
Call Number:Ref. Z657 .G73 2005
Synopsis: This new edition of a 1990 title includes hot-topic censorship issues from 1990 to 2000. The alphabetical entries cover people, legislation, and titles, including 37 newly challenged literary works such as J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Michael Willhoite's Daddy's Roommate, Lois Lowry's The Giver, and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Guterson, David.
Snow Falling on Cedars. San Diego, CA: Hoartcourt Brace, 1994.
Call Number:PS3557.U846 S65 1994
Synopsis: Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Hemingway, Ernest.
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. . New York: Scribner, 2003.
Call Number:PS3515.E37 A15 2003
Synopsis: A thoughtfully arranged, comprehensive edition of Hemingway's short fiction justifies publication. This is not it. At best, it offers convenience rather than creativity or even completeness: it omits five stories published two years ago. It reprints the "the first 49" stories (1938), adds 14 subsequently published, and appends seven hitherto unpublished.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Hemingway, Ernest.
A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner, 1957.
Call Number:PS3515.E37 F3 1957
Synopsis: As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corps instead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he became the first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingway came out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealth of experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold with A Farewell to Arms.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Huxley, Aldous.
Brave New World. New York: Harper, 1946.
Call Number:PR6015.U9 B65 1946
Synopsis: "Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Kingslover, Barbara.
The Bean Trees: A Novel. New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1988.
Call Number:PS3561.I496 B44 1998
Young, bright Taylor Greer leaves her poverty-stricken life in Kentucky and heads west, picking up an abandoned Native American baby girl whom she names Turtle and finds a new home in Tucson with Mattie, an old woman who takes in Central American refugees.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Call Number:PS3562.E353 T6 1995
Synopsis: "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

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Lelyveld, Joseph.
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Call Number:DS481.G3 L337 2011
Synopsis: With Great Soul, Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph Lelyveld accomplishes the difficult task of humanizing the fabled "Mahatma." Utterly unafraid of depicting Gandhi's less palatable tendencies--shameless self-promotion, inscrutable sexual mores, and an often narrow and ethnically specific application of his evolving political tenets--Lelyveld instead stands the man up against the myth.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Mathabane, Mark.
Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Call Number:DT1949.M38 A3 1998
Synopsis: A Black writer describes his childhood in South Africa under apartheid and recounts how Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith helped him leave for America on a tennis scholarship.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Meade, Richelle.
Vampire Academy. New York: Razorbill, 2007.
Call Number:PS3613.E1275 V36 2007
Synopsis: Two years after a horrible incident made them run away, vampire princess Lissa and her guardian-in-training Rose are found and returned to St. Vladimir's Academy, where one focuses on mastering magic, the other on physical training, while both try to avoid the perils of gossip, cliques, gruesome pranks, and sinister plots.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003.
Call Number:PE1628 .M36 2003
Synopsis: Despite a change in title, this volume supersedes Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983) as the latest in a nearly 100-year-old line of college desk diction aries from Merriam-Webster.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Meyer, Stephenie.
Breaking Dawn. New York: Little Brown, 2008.
Call Number: PS3613.E979 B74 2008
Synopsis: Although eighteen-year-old Bella joins the dark but seductive world of the immortals by marrying Edward the vampire, her connection to the powerful werewolf Jacob remains unsevered.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Meyer, Stephenie.
New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2006.
Call Number:PS3613.E979 N49 2006
Synopsis: When the Cullens, including her beloved Edward, leave Forks rather than risk revealing that they are vampires, it is almost too much for eighteen-year-old Bella to bear, but she finds solace in her friend Jacob until he is drawn into a "cult" and changes in terrible ways.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Meyer, Stephenie.
Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005.
Call Number:PS3613.E979 T95 2005
When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

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Morrison, Toni.
Song of Solomon. New York: Knopf, 1977.
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 S65 1977
Synopsis: With passion and a voice that sings with beautiful detail and magic, Toni Morrison's third novel, published in 1977, is a powerful tale that follows the lives of a black family and their friends living in a Michigan city
Source: http://www.amazon.com

The Qu'ran. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Call Number:BP109 2010
Synopsis: One of the most influential books in the history of literature, recognized as the greatest literary masterpiece in Arabic, the Qur'an is the supreme authority and living source of all Islamic teaching, the sacred text that sets out the creed, rituals, ethics, and laws of Islam.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Richardson, Justin and Peter Parnell.
And Tango Makes Three. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Call Number:PZ10.3.R414 Tan 2005
Synopsis: At New York City's Central Park Zoo, two male penguins fall in love and start a family by taking turns sitting on an abandoned egg until it hatches.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye. Boston, MA: Little Brown, 2001.
Call Number:PS3537.A426 C3 2001
Synopsis: Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Sapphire.
Push. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
Call Number: PS3569.A63 P87 1996
Synopsis: Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Seiestad, Asne.
The Bookseller of Kabul. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 2003.
Call Number: CT1877.5.K48 S45 2003
Synopsis: The Norwegian journalist provides a portrait of a committed Muslim man and his family living in post-Taliban Kabul, Afghanistan.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Vonnegut, Kurt.
Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death. New York: Delacorte Press, 1969.
Call Number: PS3572.O5 S6
Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Walker, Margaret
Jubilee. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Call Number: PS3545.A517 J8 1999
Synopsis: Here is the classic--and true--story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his black mistress, a Southern Civil War heroine to rival Scarlett O'Hara. Vyry bears witness to the South's prewar opulence and its brutality, to its wartime ruin and the subsequent promise of Reconstruction.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Waschberger, Ken. Ed.
Banned Books. New York: Facts On File, 2006.
Call Number: Ref. Z658.U5 B35 2006
Synopsis: The aim of this four-volume set is to spotlight some 400 works that have been censored, banned, or condemned because of their political, social, religious, or sexual content.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

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Books Available at Other Libraries

Cast, P.C. and Kristin Cast.
Marked. New York: St. Martin's, 2007.
Call Number: DeKalb County Public Libraries
Synopsis: The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampires have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do.
Source: http://www.worldcat.org

Crutcher, Chris.
Deadline. New York: Greenwillow Books, 2007.
Call Number: DeKalb County Public Libraries
Synopsis: Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, high school senior Ben Wolf decides to fulfill his greatest fantasies, ponders his life's purpose and legacy, and converses through dreams with a spiritual guide known as "Hey-Soos."
Source: http://www.worldcat.org

Hahn, Mary Downing
The Dead Man in Indian Creek. New York: Clarion Books, 1990.
Call Number: DeKalb County Public Libraries
Synopsis: When Matt and Parker learn the body they found in Indian Creek is a drug-related death, they fear Parker's mother may be involved.
Source: http://www.worldcat.org

Hartinger, Brent.
The Geography Club. New York: HarperTempest, 2003.
Call Number: DeKalb County Public Libraries
Synopsis: A group of gay and lesbian teenagers finds mutual support when they form the "Geography Club" at their high school.
Source: http://www.worldcat.org

Irving, John.
A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel. New York: Morrow, 1989.
Call Number: Dunwoody PS3559.R8 P7 1989
Synopsis: Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom.
Source: http://www.amazon.com

Johnson, Maureen.
The Bermudez Triangle. New York: Razorbill, 2007.
Call Number: DeKalb County Public Libraries
Synopsis: The friendship of three high school girls and their relationships with their friends and families are tested when two of them fall in love with each other.
Source: http://www.worldcat.org

Meyer, Stephenie
Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2008.
Call Number: Dunwoody PS3613.E979 E25 2008
Bella must choose between her friendship with Jacob, a werewolf, and her relationship with Edward, a vampire, but when Seattle is ravaged by a mysterious string of killings, the three of them need to decide whether their personal lives are more important than the well-being of an entire city.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

Walls, Jeanette.
The Glass Castle: A Memoir. Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2005.
Call Number: Dunwoody HV5132 .W35 2005
Synopsis: The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.
Source: http://gilfind.gsu.edu

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