Hey everyone please don’t forget to send in your entries for Edition 37 of the Bookworms Carnival. The theme is Banned Books Week. I have a few fantastic submissions already, but I’d love to have more! I’m looking for reviews, author interviews, guests posts, or any special features. The deadline is Sept. 11th, so please get them in early!!
Not sure what to send in? Here are some useful links to help get you started.
1. Here is the official Banned Books Week website.
2. Google lets you get a preview from some frequently challenged titles.
3. Here are the 10 most challenged books f 2008
The 10 most challenged titles were:
And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence
TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age
group
Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence
Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint,
sexually explicit, and violence
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group
My kids loved the Alvin Schwartz collections when they were growing up. All three of them read them again and again and none of them have yet become Satanists. Who could really think that these books might be considered dangerous?!
Where did you find that graphic!? I want it for BWC.
That is awesome. 
I didn’t realize that Scary Stories was a banned book. I may have to read that for the carnival this time.
No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See “National Hogwash Week.”
@ Lisa — Those stories are not that scary. Well some were, but most were harmless and had a humorous ending.
@ Jackie — Thanks! Isn’t it a cute little guy? I found it doing a Google Image Search for “Bookworm”
@ Dan — when a book is challenged and a panel decides to take it off the shelves from a library, then it is indeed, banned (to prohibit, forbid, or bar). Its not a matter of book sales, but of groups or individuals singling out books based on a myoptic system of beliefs and rules that shouldn’t be forced upon a general public.
What’s with party pooper Dan Kleinman and his National Hogwash week? I got a comment from him on my post about participating in banned books week. I sent it to spam…
Anyway, where do you want reviews sent to? I just read an reviewed Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and hope to have The Handmaid’s Tale read and reviewed fairly quickly too.
Forgive me if this is not the right place to provide this, but here is a review of a banned/challenged book I have done as part of my Banned Books Project.
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel