Which book would you pick?

If you were asked to pose for an ALA Banned Book Week poster, which book would you choose to hold and why?

Mine would be Fade by Robert Cormier. It’s been a favorite book of mine for years. It does deal with adult themes (violence, incest, dark impulses) but it’s an amazing exploration of the good and evil each of us is capable of and the struggles we face. I suppose this really would be a controversial book for a poster but it would be my pick.

Blood and Guts in High School, by Kathy Acker, bowdlerised in the US and UK, banned in Germany. The title alone will wake people up to the damage done to developing intellects by censorship and spoon-feeding in high schools. I might have the book posed open to one of the drawings of her cunt.

Or maybe the Koran.

Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology edited by Amy Sonnie. I would pose with this book because I still feel it remains one of the best books for Queer and Trans youth in print. I am one of the contributers to this book which feels like a huge honor, and I am proud to be a part of it. This book helped (and helps) build radical multicultural movements of Queer and Trans youth. Just as Queer and Trans youth from marginalized communities are so often targets of violence and erasure, this book is increasingly under attack in the current atmosphere of the US (and elsewhere).

Oh, and for some reason LT is showing Revolutionary Voices as two different books, but--yes indeedy--it's just one. I'm not sure how to combine them.

"The Year They Burned the Books" in one hand and "Annie on My Mind" in the other, both by Nancy Garden, written after they burned her book in Kansas b/c she dared write sympathetically about being a gay high schooler.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, because I read that one before any of the others on the list.

Hmm...tough decision. I'll narrow it down to Fahrenheit 451 (for obvious reasons), Carrie because it seems to be one of Stephen King's most banned books, and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret simply because I loved that book when I was in junior high.

I agree, coloradogirl. It is a tough decision. I think I would have to choose To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. A close second would be Fahrenheit 451.

I would hold the most dangerous book in the history of Western Civilization - The Gutenberg Bible.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Kesey, Ken

I would choose this book because I'm mad, mad I tell you.

I would pick Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger this was one of my fav books in high school, I was actually required to read this one in my english class.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Dignity, courage, respect, humor, fear, acceptance. This book has it all.

I'm torn between Catcher in the Rye, (because I'm the guy alway watching out for people who are close to 'falling over the cliff'), and Farenheit 451, because it's a cliff of a different sort.

Probably Fahrenheit 451, or the Bible. I'm not Christian, but I am a religious studies major in college, so I think it'd be appropriate, and it would be fun to see the looks on people's faces when they saw it.

The Bible in one hand and the Qur'an in the other. I'd have my picture taken sitting on the edge of a table covered with the banned sacred writings of as many world religions as I could find.

Common Sense. A patriot whose words were hated by patriots. Nice shorthand for hypocrisy.

I agree with MerryMary and GeorgiaDawn. It would have to be To Kill a Mockingbird. This is my all-time favorite book, and I have never been able to understand why peole would choose to challenge this book. Of course, I can't understand why they would challenge any book!

Banning and challenging books is a very important issue to me. I am an academic librarian, and I look forward every year to Banned Books Week. I have already begun to think about what I want to do this year to celebrate our freedom to READ!!

Working at a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender bookstore, most of the banned books that I'm aware of are GLBTQ books. So I'd probably hold The Sissy Duckling, which has been banned for "homosexual content" or "promoting the homosexual agenda", when it's just a cute story about a little boy duck who prefers to paint and bake rather than playing sports... and how he saves the day in the end.

I’d hold Mein Kampf, unless I could think of a work more completely offensive and dangerous.

I sometimes feel as though the celebration of Banned Books Week deteriorates into little more than celebrating the differences in our tastes rather than the principles it stands for, or should. For too many of us it seems to have become about how ‘superior’ my taste is to yours (or theirs).

Banned Books Week should be about defending the right to print, sell, purchase, borrow and read the books virtually everyone despises, including most of us, I‘m sure. If it isn’t, then we librarians aren't any different from the censors.

Sorry, but I'm feeling a little exasperated with some of my colleagues today...

Anarchist's Cookbook, since no bookstore seems to carry it and no libraries have it. It pisses me off.

Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits would be pretty high on my list. Or maybe I would just stack the entire Harry Potter series on top of my head....

>18 amorabunda: good point, most library displays I've seen trumpet the "banned" that have now become "classics" -- as you can see by how many LTers chose them... they should put out the ones no one ever checks out, the ones hidden on the top shelf or back rooms...

>19 heinous-eli: but then again, who wants to cook a bunch of spi... oh, wait, I thought it said "arachnid's"...

I like the poster on my profile, but i have no idea where it came from...

I would agree with Lali (message 20) and go with one or all of the Harry Potter books. I feel it represents the stupidity of people who ban books. I mean, really, Harry Potter? What is wrong with that book?

:)

I'd go with the following: Walter the Farting Dog, Heather Has Two Mommies, and Tango Makes Three; Walter because it's hilarious and innocent; the other two because it illustrates how intolerant people can be.

I would hold Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut. I love Vonnegut, this is a great book, and it's banned because it has one swear word in it.

I love Walter the Farting Dog! Is this on the list?

I have a friend who teaches emotionally impaired kids, and they love that story, too.

Yes, Walter the Farting Dog was removed from a shelf somewhere because of the "crudeness." Like the people who censored never had a farting dog. Yeesh!

motomama, lol!

One of my high school buddies had Max, the farting German shepherd, she kept matches handy to burn off the excess methane.

Considering the damage done by Joe Stalin and the Communists, it would have to be the Collected Works of Marx and Engels as twice - perhaps three times the number of Soviet citizens perished in show trials and death camps as Hitler managed to do. And - God knows how many Chairman Mao butchered in his tenure.

nohrt4me

What's even worse is a dog who does it, knows how awful it smells and then leaves the room!

Sorry, back to the topic at hand.

motomama, I never had or knew any dogs like that. They all seemed totally oblivious.

Oddly, I never had a flatulent cat.

I think that's because they're pickier about what they eat, and develop fewer gastric problems.

Or they're very clever at pinning it on someone else.

Don't look at this as an off-topic sidetrack; look at it as an exercise of your freedom of speech!

I would want to pose naked with Sendak's "In the Night Kithchen." They could shoot the picture from my back with the ofending picture showing.

I would choose The Giver by Lois Lowry. Mainly because once my son read it, or I should say devoured it, he had the reading bug big time. I still recommend it to young adults when I get a chance. Any book that lights a fire in a kid's mind is essential in every library, in my humble opinion.

I would definitely hold up 'Bastard out of Carolina'. That book will shake your faith in the human race.

>18 amorabunda:

Mein Kampf is really banned these days because of its associations, and I believe it to be neither offensive nor dangerous. Is there anything in it that isn't current in the 'conspiracy end' of the internet these days? At least the book is quite well written, albeit in a rather obsessive way.

I agree it would be suitable for the poster, since at least most people have the common misperception in mind, and it would therefore fulfill its visual purpose. But for those of us with a broader perspective, inclusion would generate more than a few wry smiles ...
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"Last Book in the Universe" by Rodman Philbrick

Simply wonderful :)