{"id":25936,"date":"2015-10-02T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=25936"},"modified":"2015-09-30T17:21:34","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T22:21:34","slug":"banned-books-week-surprising-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/banned-books-week-surprising-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned Books Week: Surprising Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSomething will be offensive to someone in every book, so you’ve got to fight it.\u201d – Judy Blume<\/em><\/p>\n

Judy Blume would know — she has 5 of the top 100 most challenged books from 1990-1999<\/a>\u00a0— but when you peruse the\u00a0lists of the most frequently challenged books<\/a>, it is hard not to agree. \u00a0Below, I’ve highlighted the three challenged books that surprised me the most.<\/p>\n

\"strega<\/a>Strega Nona<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0by Tomie dePaola
\nTomie dePaola’s classic picture book is often cited as one of the best picture books of all time\u00a0— it was #34 on\u00a0SLJ’s Top 100 Picture Books<\/a>\u00a0— so it might come as a surprise that it has been challenged. \u00a0The story of a magical old woman (“grandma witch”) who tells her assistant — Big Anthony — not to touch her magical pot of pasta. \u00a0Big Anthony ignores her and Strega Nona must save the day before the town is overrun in pasta.
\nWhy was it challenged or banned?<\/strong> Witchcraft, of course.<\/p>\n

\"wheres<\/a>Where’s Waldo<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Martin Hanford
\nI loved Where’s Waldo<\/strong><\/em> books as a kid. \u00a0My mom would bring a stack of them with us on long car rides and they would entertain my brother and me for hours. \u00a0Waldo\u00a0books\u00a0are\u00a0a challenge of concentration and a fantastic way to get kids to pick up on pattern and color. \u00a0I looked at these books\u00a0for hours and before reading about why the book was challenged and banned, I would have never guessed.
\nWhy was it challenged or banned?\u00a0<\/strong>Apparently in searching for Waldo, some people have been shocked to find topless sunbathers, gay couples, and people holding up the rocker hand sign (or as they called it “Hail Satan”).<\/p>\n

\"charlotte's<\/a>Charlotte’s Web<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0by E.B. White
\nI wept the first time I read this book. \u00a0This beautiful story about the friendship between Wilbur, a pig, and Charlotte, a barn spider, is a classic. \u00a0It is heartbreaking in the way many of the best children’s books are, and is beloved around the world. \u00a0When\u00a0I think of stories to share with children, I’ve always thought\u00a0that this is a safe (albeit sad) \u00a0book to recommend. \u00a0Apparently, I was wrong.
\nWhy was it challenged or banned?\u00a0<\/strong>It was banned in 2006 when a group of parents were upset that it included talking animals and inappropriate subject matter (death).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSomething will be offensive to someone in every book, so you’ve got to fight it.\u201d – Judy Blume Judy Blume would know — she has 5 of the top 100 most challenged books from 1990-1999\u00a0— but when you peruse the\u00a0lists of the most frequently challenged books, it is hard not[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[1355,831,1811],"class_list":["post-25936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","tag-banned-books","tag-banned-books-week","tag-childrens-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-6Kk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25936"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25979,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25936\/revisions\/25979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}