Banned Books
Apr. 9th, 2012 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
'The Hunger Games' ignites the ALA's list of most challenged books
The ALA keeps track of challenges filed and counted 326 reported attempts to restrict or remove books from schools and libraries in 2011. The association defines a challenge as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness.”
Barbara Jones, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told the Associated Press that many of the complaints leveled against The Hunger Games books focused on the film version directed by Gary Ross. “There was complaining about the choice of actors for the film,” she said. “You had people saying someone was dark-skinned in the book, but not in the film, or dark-skinned in the film and not in the book. In general, a lot more people were aware of the books and that led to more kinds of complaints.”
Lauren Myracle, a regular on these types of lists, came in at number one with her epistolary Internet Girl books. But the book that topped the list last year — And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who raise a baby chick together — didn’t crack the top ten. Jones said she’d like to believe that people are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality, but it may just be that other books are attracting more attention.
The Hunger Games: Get the latest news, photos, and more
What do you think about the complaints against The Hunger Games books? “Violence,” I get, but can you see why anyone would call them “anti-family” or “anti-ethnic”?
Anti-ethnic? Are these the folks complaining that Rue wasn't white? Whu?
Also... Satanic? Whu-whu?
And finally... what 'bad language' was used anywhere in the story?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 09:23 pm (UTC)Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
Not sure these people have actually read the books, or if they did, they didn't comprehend them. Sexually explicit? Were they looking at Harold Robbins or something?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 09:27 pm (UTC)And... insensitivty? Good grief, 99% of books could be that!
no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 09:52 pm (UTC)I may be misremembering things, and "anti-ethnic" may mean something entirely different in this case, but just a thought - wasn't there a US state where they recently banned all discussion of ethnicity altogether from school curricula... which basically meant that all literature that wasn't about WASPs got thrown out?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 07:32 pm (UTC)having read the trilogy, i agree with my kids on the authorial laziness bit. there are certain turns of phrases in the narrative that sounded stilted. but as a whole, i enjoyed the books. as world-building goes, the writer has a solid handle in this. mosty though, i could relate to the story both emotionally and intellectully. i grew up under an authoritarian government, and i've lost family and friends to the armed political conflicts that raged in my country in the 70s and 0s. i get the part of the trilogy about young people being sacrificed to keep the status quo going. my kids understand this part, but they don't really get it. the effect is not visceral for them, because their own experience of the world is different. frankly, i'm not sure what to think and how i feel about this.
i apologize for this long comment. i know you've been posting about the Hunger Games for quite a while now, and i've never said anything even though i found your postings well-considered and passionate. i guess, i'm trying to make up for my laziness.