Monday, April 30, 2007

Reporting on the Challenge April 30, 2007

Take the "Banned Book Challenge" along with another 153 people, including the people listed below, who have pledged to read over 1616 books in the Banned Book Challenge.

jasacat, USA, 20
mqoslit, USA, 6
Dewey, USA, 3
earohn, USA, 25

Take the "Banned Book Challenge" yourself. Register and set your goal, submit a completed title, and let us know when you have completed the challenge. The challenge runs until June 30, 2007.

See the comments below for titles that have been submitted.

2 comments:

fahrenheit451moderator said...

escapingjourney, USA
Athletic Shorts
My guess is that he has one story where a character is gay and has aids and he has another story where the character uses racist terms/names
A review is on my blog. http://notenoughbooks.blogspot.com

Diane, USA
To Kill A Mockingbird
The layers of character, description, and human interaction make for a very thoughtful and enjoyable read. The innocent "eyes" and thoughts of the main character Scout remind us all of how we forget to "walk in anothers shoes" as her father taught her. This is truly a classic and I am glad I took the time to read it.

So, why was this book on the challenged list? Perhaps the candidness of Harper Lee in her look at how people are labeled and treated according to their skin color, family heritage, education, and finacial or social position is too strong or hits too close to home for some readers.
http://bookinhand.blogspot.com

CoversGirl, Australia
The Decameron
It painted unflattering portraits of members of the religious orders, and many of the stories were bawdy even by todays standards. (Wife-swapping, anyone?)

Liz, Canada
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Though I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I don’t think that it would have had the same effect on me if I were black, or harelipped, or native, or poor or any other minority that Clemens includes in this scathing social commentary. Though I read Huck Finn as a critique of mainstream white society, the subtle and open-ended writing style that Clemens employs can leave his meaning ambiguous. I suspect he did this on purpose to create controversy, sell books, build a name for himself, and evade social criticism for denouncing what was, at that time, just ordinary life. It is a carefully written and artful book. It’s so clever it makes the hair on my arms stand up.

Elaine, Canada
Nineteen Minutes
This book was taken out of Jodi Picoults home town high school because the layout of the school resembled that of the school in the novel. I found the book a little too predictable.

agfisch, USA
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Must have been banned in China. For being honest in the telling of Chinese life under the rule of Japan(Manchuria)), Chiang kai shek (Kuomintang)and Communisim and Mao (Cultural Revolution). Not like the myth perpetuated in China and that many Chinese still believe. It was well written, to try to reveal Chinese thinking to a western mind. I don't know that many of us understood what was really happening in China at the time. Hard to discern the reality from the propaganda that was leaked out. The truth of Mao's megalomania and the lengths he was willing to go was shocking news to me.

Heidijane, United Kingdom
Go Tell it on the Mountain
No idea - too much religion perhaps?

katrina said...

So far I have read Silas Marner - not sure why that book was challenged will need to do some research and Flowers for Algernon, an amazing book, I'm guessing that it was challenged because science was shown to improve mans intelligence, and because of the sex - as it was writte in the 1950's