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Monday, September 28, 2009

Tuesday Thinger: Have Your Books Been Banned?

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

This week, in honor of Banned Book Week (Sept. 26th - Oct. 3rd), our Thinger comes from Tina of Tutu's Two Cents.

Library Thing has a library called BannedBooksList that lists. . . you guessed it!. . . banned books. If you haven't taken a look yet, here it is!

When you click on the library and look on the right-hand column in the first blue box, you will see how many books you share with BannedBooksLibrary.

Questions (feel free to answer one question or as many as you want): Do you have any banned books in your Library? If so, how many? Do you remember having any strong reactions or feelings when reading these books? Were any of the books on the list particularly surprising to you? As always, any special requests or suggestions for next week?

My Answer: Currently, I've got three books in common with BannedBooksLibrary. . . sadly, I KNOW I've read more than three banned books. Why do I only have three on there?? Because I've only been using LT since August of 2008, and I only add the books I've read and reviewed to my Library Shelves. So - I guess I'm admitting that I haven't read a banned book over the past year.

Here are the books I've got in common:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

**To see what BannedBooksList had to say, I had to scroll through my different book shelf views until I found one that showed the tags/notes. I think I used View C, but yours may be different. **

I remember loving Huckleberry Finn. I just recently went through a box of old school papers my mother stopped by with, and one was a journal of Huckleberry Finn that I had to create - how fun. :)

Here is what BannedBooksList had to say under tags/comments: *Banned Books, *Censored Books, *Challenged Books, Category: Fiction, Country: USA, Country: USSR, Reason: Moral, Reason: Racism, Source: ALA 10 Most Challenged 2007, Source: ALA 100 Most Frequently Challenged 1990-2000, Source: Beacon for Freedom Database, Time Period: 2000sUS - 1885 banned by Concord, MA library as trash 1905 Barred from Brookly Library Childrens Room "Huck not only itches, but scratches and says sweat when he should say perspiration" 1957 dropped from list of approved books for NYC schools partially due to "n word" - Twain censored. 1969 - removed from Miami-Dade Junior College required reading list - "creates an emotional block for black students that inhibits learning" Challenged as racist - 1976 Winnetka, IL 1981: Davenport, Iowa 1982: Houston, Texas and Fairfax County, Virginia 1983: State College, Pennsylvania 1984: Springfield and Waukegan, Illinois 1986: Lincoln, Nebraska USSR - 1930 confiscated at border 1946 had become best sellers in Soviet Union (Info Source - Beacon for Freedom database)
Gone With The Wind has always been a favorite! I've probably read it at least 10 times, mostly in my teens.
Here's what BannedBooksLibrary had to say about Gone With the Wind: Category: Fiction, Country: USA, Reason: Moral, Source: ALA
To Kill a Mockingbird - I had to read it in an English class in High School, and I don't remember much about it, so I'm assuming that it wasn't one of my favorites.
Here's what BannedBooksLibrary had to say about Gone With the Wind: *Challenged Books, Category: Fiction, Country: USA, Reason: Moral, Source: ALA, Source: ALA 100 Most Frequently Challenged 1990-2000

I was very surprised to see Gone With The Wind on the list.

Looking forward to reading everyone's answers!!

~ Wendi

If you are new to Tuesday Thingers: Welcome! The meme was originally created as a way to network with other bloggers and to learn about Library Thing! I'd like to encourage you to join us. If you don't know what Library Thing is - you are in a great place to learn about new things, and if you are an old pro, stick around and share your wealth of information! Visit Library Thing here. To join in, copy the picture and question into your post and link back here so people can read other responses. Make sure you leave a comment here with a link to your post so we can stop by! If you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here!

11 Comments:

Alice said...

I've got quite a few in my personal library...

Elena said...

Only got two in mine: Canterbury Tales and The Lord of the Rings. Now, lets see if I can figure out how to get to their notes on those books.

Wendi said...

Oh - I forgot to mention that. . . I think being able to see the tags/notes depends on the views of your shelves and how you've edited them. To see them on mine, I had to go to view C.

:) Wendi

bermudaonion said...

I share 3 books with the banned books list, but I've certainly read more than that.

Natalie W said...

I'm not sure if I have any in my library, i'll have to check. I really wanted to read some for the banned book week but didn't have time. Great post, i didn't know LT had that , so I'm going there now to check it out.

Lenore Appelhans said...

I share 20, but my LT library is far from complete. Here's a link to my full answer:

http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com/2009/09/library-thing-tuesday-73-picture-of.html

Anonymous said...

can't seem to figure out how many banned books I share...if I have none that's just silly I'm sure I read a banned book!!!!!!

Booklogged said...

I have six in my LibraryThing. I only list books that I actually own in my LibraryThing so it won't include any that I've checked out from my local library or borrowed.

I had Kill a Mockingbird, too. I suggest that you reread that book. It's excellent. I just reread it a couple years ago.

bus said...

Actually my two favorite books are in the banned category... its really pretty bad for me.

Ryan said...

I have an award for you when you get a chance to come by.

http://wordsmithonia.blogspot.com/2009/09/award-time-part-2.html

Anonymous said...

It was certainly interesting for me to read the article. Thanx for it. I like such themes and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read a bit more on that blog soon.

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