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61)
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The best book on puberty for 9-15 year old boys completely updated for the first time in 12 years! Selected as a "Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association--The classic puberty education book for 9-15 year-old boys (over 500,000 copies sold), now thoroughly updated and freshly redesigned for the first time in 12 years. This classic book covers the body's changing size and shape, hair, voice changes, perspiration, pimples, the reproductive organs, sexuality, puberty in girls and adds new sections on diet, exercise, and health. It also includes vital information on AIDS, STDs, and birth control appropriate for this age group, and an introduction for parents and educators.
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Complaint: Sexual themes.
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62)
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Judy Blume and her character Margaret Simon were the first to say out loud (and in a book even) that it is normal for girls to wonder when they are ever going to fill out their training bras. Puberty is a curious and annoying time. Girls' bodies begin to do freakish things--or, as in Margaret's case, they don't do freakish things nearly as fast as girls wish they would. Adolescents are often so relieved to discover that someone understands their body-angst that they miss one of the book's deeper explorations: a young person's relationship with God. Margaret has a very private relationship with God, and it's only after she moves to New Jersey and hangs out with a new friend that she discovers that it might be weird to talk to God without a priest or a rabbi to mediate. Margaret just wants to fit in! Who is God, and where is He when she needs Him? She begins to look into the cups of her training bra for answers.
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Challenged in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, because the book is "sexually offensive and amoral."
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63)
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Increasingly alienated from his widowed father, Vernon joins his friends in ridiculing the neighborhood outcasts: Maxine, an alcoholic prone to outrageous behavior, and Ronald, her retarded son. But when a social service agency tries to put Ronald into a special home, Vernon fights against the move.
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At Seymour, Texas, Elementary School, a complaint was filed because the book was "using God's name in vain." Challenged at the Prospect Heights, IL school libraries (1996) because of "swear words."
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64)
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If the stereotype of the "bonehead jock" is ever to be defeated, it will be at Crutcher's hands. In these six short stories, he and his athlete protagonists take on such weighty issues as racism, homophobia, sexism and the teenager's essential task of coming to terms with his parents. At the same time the author makes the world of sports compelling enough to engage even the most sedentary readers. Three of the stories revolve around characters featured in Crutcher's The Crazy Horse Electric Game , including the memorable eccentric known as Telephone Man. Also starring in his own story is Lionel Serbousek, the orphaned artist and swimmer of Stotan! In the book's final tale, Louie Banks (from Running Loose ) is befriended by a young man with AIDS and must cope once again with the untimely death of a loved one.
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Complaints: Offensive language, sexual themes, racism.
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65)
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In Fade, which encompasses three stories in three decades, 13-year-old Paul discovers an incredible secret gift: he can become invisible. His long-lost uncle appears, to tell Paul that each generation of the family has one fader, and to warn him of the fade's dangers. Paul, however, abuses his power and quickly learns its terrible price. Twenty-five years later, Paul, a successful writer, confronts the next fader, his abused nephew Ozzie, whose power is pure vengeance. And 25 years after that, in 1988, Paul's distant cousin Susan, also a writer, reads his amazing story, and must decide if Paul's memoir is fact or fiction. Fade is an allegory of the writer's life. Paul's actions stem from his compulsion to understand the behavior of the people around him; Susan's questions and her awful dilemma, which concludes the book, result from her near-pathological writer's focus on other persons, a purpose her unreachable late cousin serves well.
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Complaints: Violence, sexual themes.
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66)
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The structure is simple, introduced on the first page with a flat statement: "Far away from here lives a crazy lady called Daisy O'Grady." This is followed by a series of questions ("Is she tall? Guess!") that are answered with a resounding "Yes!" when the page is turned. Each exchange builds a description of a woman who, it is increasingly obvious, is a witch.
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Complaints: Immorality, witchcraft.
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67)
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Here, in an astonishing debut by a gifted storyteller, is the magnificent saga of proud and passionate men and women and the turbulent times through which they suffer and triumph. They are the Truebas. And theirs is a world you will not want to leave, and one you will not forget.
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Complaints: Sexual themes, offensive language.
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68)
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The picture of a missing child printed on a milk carton attracts the attention of 15-year-old Jane Johnson. A glimpse of the girl's polka-dot dress causes memories to surface, and Jane begins to review her past and question her true identity. It is nearly impossible for Jane to perceive her loving parents as kidnappers; the task of gathering evidence and drawing conclusions proves less difficult than confronting the undeniable truth. As the novel ends, Jane has found the courage to contact her real parents, but Cooney cleverly leaves the events that follow to readers' imaginations.
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Challenged in Houston for "immoral sexual conduct."
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69)
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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.
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Banned by almost everyone at some point since its publication. Burned in Drake, N. Dak. (1973). Banned in Rochester Mich. because the novel "contains and makes references to religious matters" and thus fell within the ban of the establishment clause. Challenged at the Owensboro, Ky. high School library (1985) because of "foul language, a reference to 'Magic Fingers' attached to the protagonist's bed to help him sleep, and the sentence: 'The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty.' " Challenged, but retained on the Round Rock, Tex. Independent High School reading list (1996) after a challenge that the book was too violent.
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70)
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William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright.
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The Toronto School Board banned this classic from all its schools, claiming it was racist for use of the word "niggers." A challenger in Owen, Nebraska claimed that this book was "demoralizing inasmuch that it implies that man is little more than an animal."
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71)
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Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy.
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Removed from New Jersey schools in Trenton in 1977, North Bergen in 1980, and Wall Township in 1993. As recently as 1995, the book was still cited as "dangerous, explicit, dishonest..."
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72)
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Nancy Friday's phenomenal bestsellers My Secret Garden and Forbidden Flowers broke new ground, revealing for the first time the complexity of women's secret sexual fantasies. In Women on Top, she returns to the subject that made her famous, examining the erotic fantasy lives of more than one hundred and fifty modern women. Drawn from Friday's personal interviews and letters, Women on Top contains transcripts of real sexual fantasies that will change your mind-set about women and sex. A revolutionary exploration of female eroticism, Women on Top reveals the powerful and astounding sexual attitudes that are forever changing our intimate lives.
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Before a final vote was taken by the library board on the fate of Women on Top at the Chestatee Public Library in Gainesville ( Hall County ), Georgia, the book was borrowed and "accidentally" destroyed. The board voted not to replace it.
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73)
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Recounts curses on families, creatures, places, wanderers, and ghosts. Also describes amulets and talismans which provide protection. |
Complaints: Witchcraft, Satanism.
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74)
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Jack is almost 16 as the story opens, struggling to keep life normal in the wake of his parents' divorce some years earlier. During a weekend outing, Jack's father admits to being a homosexual, throwing Jack's psyche and social life for a loop.
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Complaint: Homosexuality. Are you sensing a trend?
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75)
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This fascinating and mystical novel follows the sociopsychological maturation of a Chicano boy in New Mexico in the 1940s. A story pitting good against evil, Catholic beliefs against the "old ways," and education against the gift of intuition, it ends with acceptance and new life challenges.
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Complaints: Offensive language, "glorifies death," sexual themes, witchcraft.
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76)
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Describes the reproductive process from intercourse to birth.
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Challenged at the Washoe County Library System in Reno, Nev. (1994) because "Nobody in their right mind would give a book like that to children on their own, except a library."
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77)
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Carrie White, bullied by cruel teenagers at school and her religious nut of a mother at home, gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, powers that will eventually be turned on her tormentors. King has a way of getting under the skin of his readers by creating an utterly believable world that throbs with menace before finally exploding. He builds the tension in this early work by piecing together extracts from newspaper reports, journals, and scientific papers, as well as more traditional first- and third-person narrative in order to reveal what lurks beneath the surface of Chamberlain, Maine.
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Considered "trash" that is especially harmful for "younger girls." Challenged by Clark High School library, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1975. Placed on special closed shelf in Union High School library, Vergennes, Vermont, 1978.
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78)
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Resettled in the "Bomb City" with her mother and brother, Davey Wexler recovers from the shock of her father's death during a holdup of his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City.
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Complaints: Offensive language, violence, sexual themes.
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79)
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Joel's best friend Tony drowns while they are swimming in the forbidden, treacherous Vermilion River. Joel is terrified at having to tell of his disobedience and overwhelmed by his feelings of guilt.
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Retained at the Orchard Hill Elementary School in Cedar Falls, Iowa (1989) after being challenged because the 1986 Newbery Honor Book contained "two swear words and one vulgarity." Challenged at the Alamo Heights, Tex. School District Elementary School (1992) because the book uses the words "hell," "damn," and "frigging." Challenged in fourth to sixth grade reading classes in Grove City, Pa. (1995) because it was "depressing." The criteria used to select the Newbery Award winning book along with a list of other books that focus on "divorce, death, suicide and defeat," was contested.
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80)
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Billy thinks he's too short, too pale, too wimpy, and too tentative to make a place for himself in a world that is taller, tanner, classieruntil he spends a marvelous summer in Arizona living with his uncle and working with race horses. There he finds a wonderful girl who thinks he's terrific and a job at which he discovers he's really good. Above all, there's his gay uncle, whose positive portrayal is rarely seen in young adult novels.
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Pulled from and later restored to the seventh grade English classroom at Minnetonka, Minn. Middle School West (1994) after a parent found the content inappropriate for twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.
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