ALA's most banned books.

The American Library Association has released their State of America's Libraries Report 2012. It's a little early for Banned Books Week, but the report lists the top ten banned banned books for 2011.

• ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle 
• The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
• The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
• My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
• Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
• What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
• Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

No huge surprises there. To Kill a Mockingbird and Brave New World make the top of the list every year* and as young adult series become more popular, they're becoming bigger targets for banning.

My Mom's Having a Baby! threw me for a loop at first. How offensive could that possibly be? It sounds kind of sweet. After looking up the description on Amazon, I think I've figured out why some parents find it so bad-- there's a description of SEX! We definitely can't talk about SEX! in a book about pregnancy aimed at eight year olds. Oh no, they'll end up as sexual deviants for sure. Best to tell them that babies come from the stork or the Easter bunny or kissing or something.

The Hunger Games isn't a surprising addition to the list. It's violent as all hell and the protagonist is a decidedly un-lady like young woman who isn't concerned with landing a man and having babies. It does amuse me that so many people are fighting against it, though, considering how incredibly popular the book series (and now the movie) is. The anti-learning/anti-book/anti- First Amendment crowd is just whistling into the wind at this point (or whatever metaphor is apt).

*I've read Brave New World within the past decade or so, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the hell is so offensive about it.