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Loading ...Gay penguin book remains most challenged
04.16.2009 11:37am EDT
(New York City) Not everybody loves gay penguins or “The Kite Runner.”
Khaled Hosseini’s million-selling novel, “The Kite Runner”, about friendship and betrayal between two Afghan boys, a book club favorite that became a feature film, was among the releases mostly likely to inspire complaints last year from parents, educators and others, the American Library Association announced Thursday.
“The Kite Runner,” which includes a rape scene, has been criticized for offensive language and sexual content. A parent in Champaign, Ill., and a school board official in Morganton, N.C., were among those who challenged “The Kite Runner” last year.The ALA listed 513 challenges last year, an increase of 93 from 2007, but well below the levels of 700 and higher in the 1990s. The ALA defines a challenge as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”
For every challenge tallied, about four or five end up unreported, according to the ALA.
For the third year in a row, the most challenged book was “And Tango Makes Three,” Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s award-winning picture story about two male penguins who become parents. “Tango” was cited for being anti-family, pro-gay and anti-religion.
Also high on the list were Philip Pullman’s “Dark Materials” trilogy (complaints for being violent and anti-religious), Cecily von Ziegesar’s “Gossip Girls” series (language, sexually explicit), Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories” (violence, occultism) and Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (drugs, suicide, nudity, language).
ALA spokeswoman Macey Morales said that books were actually pulled at least 74 times last year. Those removed included Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” (refers to masturbation), Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper” (sexually explicit) and Mark Bowden’s “Black Hawk Down” (profanity).
In the fall, the library association will co-sponsor the 28th annual “Banned Books Week,” a nationwide program founded in 1982 that highlights banned and challenged books. Thursday’s list was released just days after “Banned Book Weeks” founder Judith Krug died of cancer at age 69.
“and Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (drugs, suicide, nudity, language).”
LOL! Not nudity in a book! :O How ridiculous.
The problem with the penguin book is simple. Animals, according to religious dogma, are non-sentient life forms that function purely on instinct, with no conscious choices involved. This is in direct opposition to other dogma that insists that homosexuality is a choice. Obviously if it occurs in nature by animals (homosexuality has been documented in dozens of species) that cannot make choices, then it must be innate, meaning it is the way “God” made them. It is extremely difficult to reconcile 2 opposing dogmas and this book, based on real animals, merely makes the religious lunatic fringe look more foolish than they already are.
Amen, TigerTzu. Well said.
I *love* this book. We went out and bought it right away when it was published. We gave it to our young nieces.
What the hell are the authors of these CHILDREN’S books thinking?
Masturbation, nudity, suicide, sex…
Geeeesh…what ever happened to “To Kill a Mockingbird”?
Is it absolutely impossible for these authors to right anything without all of these adult situations which most kids don’t even think about?
Sam Clemens wrote book after book after book, and I don’t recall one scene in which Huck Finn fucked Tom Sawyer.
Maybe they were. I’m sure they had their sword-fights and jack-off races, but perhaps Mr. Clemens didn’t think those small facets of their lives just weren’t important enough or germaine (sic) to the plot of boy adventure.
I’m sorry…I’m all for freedom of speech and writing reality…but, let’s let the kids be kids for a while, hunh?
I’m thinking the authors include these moments in their characters’ lives more for their own titilation than anything else.
I write. My characters do what characters do…take off on their own, tell me their stories more than the other way around. That doesn’t mean I have to write down EVERYTHING they show me. Writing a story isn’t a minute-by-minute account like a court record. Let’s have a little editing here, guys.
Now, as for the two male penquins raising a chick…since this has happened in real life and I don’t think the story has a page wherein Paul P is boinking the beak off of Peter P, then the complaints are fatuous.
How can a book about 2 penguins raising a chick be “anti-religious”? I didn’t know penguins went to church, let along belong to any religion! Of course, being dressed up in tuxedos all the time, maybe they were going to the Limelight.
Sarrellec, these books were not intended for children. I know for sure that The Kite Runner was never meant to be a children’s book, and I’m pretty sure Jodi Piccoult and Mark Bowden never claimed to be authors of children’s books.
How amazing that people protested the reading of certain books. I never thought the Xian Right actually read…
Has anybody ever thought about complaining about The Bible” in libraries? It talks about wars, incest and (heaven forbid) homosexuality. And that is just a few things that I wouldn’t want my children to read about. That is if I had any children. So why can’t the people who have children that visit 365gay.com and support marriage equality (part of the gay agenda) complain about THAT book to get it banned also? It would be very interesting to give it a try and see what happens.
ALAN said: “Has anybody ever thought about complaining about The Bible” in libraries?”
Actually, Alan, the Bible (as well as the Quran have been challenged numerous times and have appeared frequently on banned books lists all over the US and the rest of the world.
What I find so stupid about the idea of banning books is that if adults don’t like the content of a certain book then they should just not read it and if they don’t approve of it for their child then they shouldn’t let their child read it.
It’s not the goverment’s job or the libraries job to parent their children for them.
And why should they have the right to say that I can’t read that book, or that my child can’t read it? It’s just another example of people who should mind their own business and take care of their own kids instead of telling other people how to raise theirs and how to live their lives!
@Sarrellec, actually Mark Twain has been banned from certain libraries for various reasons. Some of Twain’s essays debunking religion were not published until forty years or more after his death — and even then, several versions were highly edited so as not to offend. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were banned in some Children’s Library because of the extensive use of the “N” word regarding the escaped slave, Jim.
Illiterate religious fanatics and right-wing extremists will always find irrational justifications to ban books if those tomes threaten their narrow (minded) agenda.
Other examples:
“The Savannah Morning News reported in November 1999 that a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear. The teacher’s school board had pulled the books from class reading lists, citing ‘adult language’ and references to sex and violence.”
Check out the link below. You’d be shocked at how many “mainstream” works of literature have been banned in the past, and how many are still threatened today.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html
This response is to Kristie. I do agree actually about not banning books at all. A few years ago, I went to my high school reunion (it is a private school). I was checking out our library and wanted to see if they had any books on Wicca as this is my religion. The only ones that I found were obviously against it. I went out and bought some new books about beginning Wicca and donated them to the school. They accepted them gladly as they did have a few Wiccans there. I really am against the banning of all books and believe that the only way to counteract it is to give reading material that gives an opposing view (or a positive view as the case might be).
Just let the maggots keep their kids out of the libraries. We still need lowlifes as manual laborers and other jobs where ignorance is bliss.
–*And we need a separate group to support these books, and to sue the libraries that cave, based on freedom of speech.
The money could be put to good use. Anyone got good contacts in the ACLU?
“Ban the Bible”? “Lowlifes”? “Maggots”? Think about the comments you leave folks. If this crap is acceptable then nobody cry foul when the gay slurs come. You don’t gain tolerance by being intolerant.