The #9 most challenged book of 2010

Every year certain controversial books inevitably get a lot of flak from library patrons with no sense of humor. (Some might argue no sense period, but I digress.) And every year, thankfully, the ALA (American Library Association) tallies up the list of books that have received the most “challenges” from patrons. The challenges are requests that controversial books be taken out of circulation, effectively banning these books.

Well, we learned via Galleycat yesterday that the ALA has released their Top Ten List of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010. Here’s more from the ALA’s press release:

Off the list this year are such classics as Alice Walker‘s “Color Purple”; “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee; “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger; and Robert Cormier‘s “The Chocolate War.” Replacing them are books reflecting a range of themes and ideas that include “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley;  “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie; ”The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins; and Stephenie Meyer‘s “Twilight.”

“While we firmly support the right of every reader to choose or reject a book for themselves or their families, those objecting to a particular book should not be given the power to restrict other readers’ right to access and read that book,” said Barbara Jones, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.  “As members of a pluralistic and complex society, we must have free access to a diverse range of viewpoints on the human condition in order to foster critical thinking and understanding.  We must protect one of the most precious of our fundamental rights – the freedom to read.”

Coming in at number 9 (ahead of Twilight—take that, Stephenie Meyer!) is Melville House author Amy Sonnie for Revolutionary Voices, a book of essays and stories edited by Sonnie and written by young gay and lesbian boys and girls who came out at a young age and proudly embraced their sexual identities. As Sonnie points out on her blog The Banned Librarian, Revolutionary Voices has been banned in places as far flung as Texas and New Jersey. So it’s nice to see that Voices is getting its due nationally.

Sonnie’s next book, co-authored with James Tracy, is Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times, which comes out this September. This book is a new history about working-class whites joining forces with the likes of the Black Panther Party to organize against racism and inequality in the 1960s, and it shatters a common myth that it was the rich white college kids that were out in the streets organizing with blacks, latinos, and other minorities. It’s an attempt to give voice to a side of the history of community organizing in this country that’s been virtually ignored.

No doubt it will receive its fair share of challenges. Who knows, maybe it’ll even make the list for 2011.