Book banners, beware: The librarians are onto you. And this year's list of library books that are most frequently "challenged" by members of the U.S. public - and often removed or restricted as a result - shows, if nothing else, that would-be censors remain desperately short of imagination.
Once again sex is the biggest bugbear for U.S. readers, according to the American Library Association, which tracks public complaints made to individual libraries and releases an annual list of the most challenged titles.
Last year, even the implication of a homosexual relationship between two penguins in a zoo was enough to keep a pre-reader's picture book, And Tango Makes Three, near the top of the list - a position it has held for three years in a row. But in 2009, the ambiguously gay penguins were superseded by a series of "instant message" novels for young adults by Lauren Myracle, which take the form of text messages passed among a group of teenaged girls. Complaints about sexually explicit language, nudity and references to drugs made it the most challenged title of the year.
Simple complaints don't amount to the type of recognizable challenge that the ALA measures, according to Angela Maycock, assistant director of the group's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "It goes a step further than that," she said. "It's someone saying, 'I have a problem with this book and as a result I want the library to remove it or restrict it.' " Individual public authorities control whether action is taken on that complaint.
Last year the office documented 460 such challenges resulting in 81 instances where books were removed or restricted, Ms. Maycock says. But documented cases reported to the ALA represent only a part of the total number of efforts to censor books, she added.
"These situations can be very sensitive, so we know there are many we never hear about," she said.
The third most-campaigned-against book, a young-adult novel called The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, also made the list because of sexual content. But it retains the honour of having "the longest list of different reasons people find for opposing it," Ms. Maycock said.
"There's lots of stuff going on in there, from sexual content to a homosexual character to language and drugs and even a consideration of suicide."
No. 4 was Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a perennial favourite of censors, followed by Stephenie Meyer's best-selling Twilight series, which is making its first appearance on the list due to a heady combination of sexual excitement and the supernatural.
The common thread uniting most complaints is "an anxiety and in some cases even a fear of how these books might affect young people," according to Ms. Maycock. "That is a noble goal," she added, "but it is misguided to think that denying young people access to information will ultimately benefit them."
As an example, she cited letters from young people to Mr. Chbosky, whose controversial novel examines the troubles of a high-school outcast. "Young people saying, 'I thought I was alone, I didn't know there was anyone else who felt this way. Then I read your book and I realized I wasn't alone.' " Wallflower's powerful effect on alienated youth "cuts to the heart of why we need to make sure these books are accessible," she said. "Even if a number of people think that book is offensive, it can have such a major positive impact."
Top 10 banned or challenged books of the decade
- Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
- Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
- The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
- And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
- Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
- Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
- His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
- TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
American Library Association
