Read Something Feminist and Censored for Banned Books Week

I just discovered the best reason I've heard yet for reading the Twilight series: It's number five on the American Library Association's list of Top 10 Challenged Books in 2009. Though I've resisted friends' attempts to join the Twilight craze, nothing makes a book quite so appealing as finding out somebody wants to keep you from reading it. Especially when that "someone" is so often a bunch of intolerant religious far right-wingers. (I completely understand why Arizona's ethnic studies enrollment spiked after the curriculum was banned.)

Banned Books Week is top on the list of favorite holidays for a bookworm like me. And while Twilight might not top most feminist reading lists, the latest list of books "they" don't want you to read includes a seminal novel about black women and rampant racism and sexism in the early 20th century South. The book opens with 14-year-old Celie's repeated rapes by her father, resulting in two impregnations. I'm talking about Alice Walker's The Color Purple, a volume that definitely belongs on a feminist/womanist book list. Reasons challenged: "offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group."

There's also a couple of teenage girl coming-of-age books: Carolyn Mackler's The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, which, as you can no doubt guess from the title, deals with body image issues; and, at the top of the list, Lauren Myracle's ttyl; ttfn; and l8r, g8r, a series written in instant messages conversations that address such troubles for girls hitting puberty as boyfriends and the unwanted sexual advances of teachers. But some people would prefer that our nation's youth deal with related issues blindly without the book-learning that can help them navigate a tricky time.

Then there's the book And Tango Makes Three, which has made the top 10 list four years running for having the audacity to discuss homosexuality (in penguins). No other reason for the challenges: just homosexuality. And, even worse, daring to discuss homosexuality as something normal that can lead to a loving family with same-sex parents. As Gay Rights blogger Michael Jones wrote when this book made the list last year, "It's odd that a book about the power of love and family continues to be despised by very conservative forces." Meanwhile, another Myracle's young adult novels, Luv Ya Bunches, though not on this most-banned list, was pulled from Scholastic's book fairs last year because it had lesbian moms (the horror!), and another of the banned books, My Sisters Keeper, also riled up conservative ire for its inclusion of a lesbian family member.

You can take action against book banning by signing this petition, but the best thing you can do is get one (or more) of these books, read it, and tell all your friends to as well. Host a banned book club with a secret password, if you like. Make the censorship backfire on the censors by making banned books all the more popular.

Photo credit: American Library Association