TOP 7 BANNED BOOKS

Hi everyone, my name's Catriona, it is Banned Books Week and today I'm going to be talking about some of my favourite banned books. Some people in the world try and ban, or they manage to successfully ban, certain books from places like schools and libraries so that other people can't read it. It's quite common for parents to try and ban books from school libraries or from school curriculums because they don't want their child reading that and they don't think other children should be allowed or made to read those books for various reasons. It's not the only instance where books are banned, there are different cases as well, but this seems to be one that happens quite a lot. It is book censorship at its finest. I am obviously against book censorship. I'm celebrating Banned Books Week, I've been hosting the Banned Bookathon this week, and today I wanted to highlight some of my favourite books that are banned. Some of these may surprise you, some of them may not come as a surprise to you, but I just wanted to talk about these books today, why they're banned, but also why I think you should read them. Not only to raise awareness about book censorship, but also just to recommend some good books, because who doesn't love that? So today I'm going to be talking about my top 7 banned slash challenged books and series. First and foremost, we have probably one of the most challenged book series of all time, as well as one of the most popular book series of all time, and that is the Harry Potter series. This has been challenged many, many times, let me just, hold up. This is one of the banned books resources that I find super helpful, it's one that I decided to invest in, because it has a lot of information about which books have been banned, for what reasons, etc, etc. Let me just show you how many pages are covered by the Harry Potter series. The series starts from here, so we have here, across here, and across to here. All of these are Harry Potter books that have been banned, and many instances in which they've been banned, or challenged. This one is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone alone, over one page of recorded, reported book challenges. Not every challenge to a book is reported, so there's bound to be many, many more than this, and I think this is probably the only documenting ones in America as well. So it's just, just wow. Some of the reasons which Harry Potter has been banned include, the book has a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect, and sheer evil. It contains lying and smart aleck retorts to adults. They tell children over and over again that lying, cheating, and stealing are not only acceptable, but they're cool and cute. A masterpiece of satanic description, promotes the wicca religion, it's stupid, it deals with ghosts, cults, witchcraft, it's scary, violent and dangerous, anti-family, had a religious theme, and lacked educational value. Those are just some of the many reasons why the Harry Potter series has been challenged. Nevertheless, I think this is a worthwhile series to invest in, and I feel like I don't really need to give much explanation, because this is one of the most beloved series, or at least the most well-known series, in the world. For me, personally, I love these books, partly because of a nostalgia factor, I read these when I was young, it's one of the first series that I jumped into on my own accord, and fell in love with. It makes me feel at home. That's what this series does for me, makes me feel at home. I loved The Magical World, it's something that I wish existed, like, who doesn't wish that they'd received a letter from Hogwarts, like, seriously. But I also really adored the characters, and how important friendship is, like, romance, there's a little bit of romance threaded throughout here and there with various characters, but for the most part, this centres around friendship, and that's something that I truly admire. Take that, angry parents. Next up is The Hunger Games. This has been challenged for various reasons, such as religious viewpoint, anti-ethnic, anti-family, insensitivity, violence, offensive language, occult slash satanic. This is another book slash series that is very, very well-known, and it's one of the first books that I read that really kicked off my young adult reading. Like, the pinnacle for me was certainly Twilight, which has also been banned and challenged, but The Hunger Games is one of the things that really cemented me in the young adult genre, and in particular, my love for dystopian fiction. It was just such a thrilling ride, it is intense, action-packed, definitely graphic, really emotional, like, you just fall so in love with so many of the characters, and the setting itself is about a bunch of kids going into a death ring, basically, and trying to kill each other, hack each other to pieces until one's left standing, so there's a lot of death, absolutely, there's a lot of violence, absolutely, but it's a lot more than that as well. It's about human connection and family, I don't know how it's anti-family, like, Katniss Everdeen literally volunteers herself as tribute to save her sister from dying. Anyway, but there's also a lot going on in terms of the politics as well, it's just such a gripping series, it's definitely one that I would love to revisit at some point as well. One of the books is one that I haven't read in a long time, but I went through a bit of a phase of being super fascinated by books that dealt with, like, kidnappings and assault and Stockholm Syndrome and things like that. Don't ask me why, it was just a weird fascination that I had and I just found it so interesting. One of these books that I read has been frequently challenged, and that is Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. So it's dealing with a very tough, tough topic, and I can understand why this might be deemed unsuitable for certain age groups, and some of the reasons why this has been banned have been the graphic content and unsatisfactory ending, which I find very interesting. I just found this one so, so gripping, it's a really short book and it's about this young girl who has been kidnapped and assaulted many, many times by this man who is obsessed with younger girls, and it's about her trying to get out of this really awful, awful situation. Like it's not a pleasant book to read by any means, I'm not going to sit around and say that reading that is really exciting and makes me happy and gives me a lot of good feelings, but it was raw in terms of, like, the story and the narration as well, and powerful. So very powerful. Next is a recent edition, it came out in 2017, and it is I think one of the top ten challenged books of 2017, and that is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Now the top ten challenged books list often has a majority of books that have diverse content, so I'm not really surprised that The Hate U Give is one of the books that has been frequently challenged, it's sad and disappointing, but I'm not really surprised. This book is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, it's about a girl who witnesses her friend being shot and killed by a police officer, and it deals with the repercussions of that and how this has an effect on the people around them, on the black community as well, and it's about trying to seek justice for this boy who is innocent and killed for no reason other than the fact that they were black. Some of the reasons why this has been banned include that it's pervasively vulgar, it includes drug use and offensive language. This is just one of those books that I think everyone should read, it's a really powerful, powerful story, and one that needs to be told, and I'm just so proud of the fact that this has been on the New York Times bestseller list for so, so incredibly long, like it's amazing to see books about people of colour, written by people of colour, tackling topics like police brutality and violence and systemic violence just selling so well and being talked about so much. I listened to the audiobook of this one and it had me tearing up so, so much. It was a book that definitely hit you in the feels, you're just so drawn to the characters and even though I can't, on a personal level, connect to a lot of the things and relate to a lot of the things that the characters have experienced, it's definitely a lesson about empathy and trying to put yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how they see the world and how the world treats them based on the way that they look. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. This is one that I found on a list of school texts that have been challenged and I haven't been able to find specific reasons as to why this has been challenged but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with being graphic, obviously dealing with wartime, having Nazis and things like that. This is one of my favourite books of all time. It is a beautiful story about love, friendship and connection and family. It's a hard-hitting book, you know that going in because it's dealing with World War II. It's set in Nazi Germany and it's about a young girl who moves into a foster family and this family harbours a Jewish man, they're keeping him in secret. The relationships that the young girl, Liesl, develops with these new people in her life is just so precious, so pure. I love the relationships throughout the book. That's what made this for me. Plus, it's narrated by death itself, which is so interesting and the narration is beautiful. The first couple of lines, first the colours, then the humans. That's usually how I see things, or at least how I try. Here is a small fact, you are going to die. I just love the vivid narration and the descriptions, it's such a brilliant story. I know a lot of people struggle with how slow-paced it is but that's one of the things I loved about it. It's really savouring in the moment, if you will. Would recommend it. Another book that has frequented the top ten challenge list and is also a diverse book, we have George by Alex Gino. This is a middle-grade novel about a trans main character and that's one of the main reasons this has been banned, the fact that the main character is transgender. Okay, okay, okay. So problematic, I know. It's about a young girl named George who struggles with the fact that everybody sees her as a boy. She likes to go by Melissa. And it's about this school play that is put on for Charlotte's Web. And she wants to play Charlotte but the fact that outwardly people perceive her as a boy hinders her ability to do that. So it's about her struggling with that and it's so beautiful. I love that this was written for a middle-grade audience. I think it's just so important to have books like George that are targeted towards younger readers to be exposed to different facets of life. And maybe perhaps this will be a really important story to a young child who is struggling with their identity about the body that they're in and seeing a character, a main character thriving and just being happy, oh, it just, the possibilities, making for a better world. Anyway, this was a beautiful book. It's so short. You can whiz through this so quickly. I loved Melissa. I loved her best friend. It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. The last book slash series I'm going to be talking about is a graphic novel and that is Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples. So this is a science fiction graphic novel series about these two characters who are from different races, different species, who are on opposite sides of a war. And the two of them fall in love, they have a child together and it's about them being on the run because what they've done, brought a child in the world that's mixed race, mixed species, is just so not okay in this society. Some of the reasons why Saga has been challenged is it contains nudity, offensive language, anti-family. Again, with the anti-family, this is literally about a family. It's sexually explicit and unsuited for age group. So I mean, I can understand some of these reasons because, yes, it is a graphic novel that does explicitly show nude bodies and genitalia and sexual acts, but it's such a grand graphic novel series. I just, I really don't understand the anti-family thing because it's written from the perspective of the daughter and it's about her and her family fleeing, trying to survive, meeting interesting people along the way. Such a riveting, riveting graphic novel series. I'm sure a lot of you have heard about it. It's one that has made the rounds on BookTube quite a bit and I would definitely recommend it. It's wonderful. Great time. So those are the seven banned slash challenged books that I wanted to talk about today. My favourite ones, absolutely. I would love to hear about any banned or challenged books that you love in particular. Let me know down in the comment section below. If you wanted to know a little bit more about Banned Books Week, about book censorship, I'll leave some links in the description below as well as links to resources like some of the lists of books. There's top ten lists, lists of frequently challenged children's books, young adult books, classics, diverse books, comics, dramatics, things like that. I'll leave those in the description below for you to check out. Anyway, that's all that I have for now. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you very soon in a new video, but until then, I will talk to you in the comments. Bye!