Ban This Book: List 4

I snatched some of the papers back from him and read out titles he wanted to ban. “Sounder? The Indian in the Cupboard? The Chronicles of Prydain? My Teacher Is an Alien? The Kid Who Only Hit Homers? Are you kidding with this?”

That got Rebecca and Danny interested. He was voted in unanimously.

“Trust me,” Trey said, “books have been challenged for all kinds of crazy reasons. I looked up some challenges on the Internet. The easy ones are anything that’s got witchcraft or supernatural stuff in it, anything with bad words...”

My Teacher Is an Alien got challenged because it ‘portrays the main character as handling a problem on her own, rather than relying on the help of others.’

"...Here’s ‘destruction of property,’ ‘teaches kids to lie,’ ‘a real downer,’ ‘anti-family,’ ‘lewd,’ ‘twisted,’ ‘too mature,’ ‘too immature,’ ‘bad grammar,’ ‘promotes poor nutrition’ ‘includes the word fart twenty-four times—’ ”

We worked quietly and quickly all week long. That book about the Civil War? Too violent. That book about the Holocaust? Too depressing. That book about diseases? Too scary.

“Right. Of course,” Rebecca said. She looked a little sheepish, but went back to the book challenging with gusto.

“Right. Of course,” Rebecca said. She looked a little sheepish, but went back to the book challenging with gusto.

“That’s what you say,” Danny told me with an evil grin. “To me it’s...subversive...”

I ran past her into Angelina’s room, where she was nestled down in the huge piles of shredded paper like a horse asleep in the hay.

I grabbed another handful. And another. They were full of chopped-up black typewriting and handwriting scrawled in blue and black ink.

I marched down the hall before Angelina could latch on again, and the dogs slinked out of my way. No one said a word as I slammed the door closed behind me.

The first bell rang, and I felt the first pangs of guilt for breaking the rules.

“Well-behaved women seldom make history,” Mrs. Jones said with a smile.

The chairman of the school board banged his gavel for quiet.

My dad stood up. “Oh, no,” he said. “I work in construction, and I’ve seen those books. That tree house doesn’t have any handrails, and you can see from the picture those floor joists aren’t anywhere near twelve inches apart.”

He consulted his list, and his voice turned weary. “Rebecca Zimmerman’s turn to speak.”

Rebecca leaned in to the microphone. “I respectfully cede my remaining time to Amy Anne Ollinger.”

“This is silly, she said. Those books were removed from the Shelbourne Elementary library for good reason—because they were harmful. Each and every one of them encouraged bad behavior of one kind or another, and I think we can all agree that none of us want an entire generation of Shelbourne Elementary students growing up to be menaces to society, just because some book they read in fourth grade showed them how.”

I humbly submit that we go back to the policy as set down in the school board’s bylaws.

I humbly submit that we go back to the policy as set down in the school board’s bylaws.

“There you go,” Mrs. Jones said. “Now it’s official. Although, if you’re going to be a real librarian, we’re going to have to have a talk about library patron privacy. But that’s a discussion for another time. Congratulations, Amy Anne. And thank you.”

The title on the first one was Agent Double-A Versus the Book-Eating Bovine.

The bus let us off at the bottom of our street, and Alexis pirouetted for home.

Mom laughed. “A lot of times. But now you’ll have your very own Fortress of Solitude. Here—I’ve already cleared off a bookcase for you. You can use one shelf for the books you own, and another for the books you check out from the library.”