The American Library Association publishes a list of the most frequently banned books, and celebrates them during banned books week. Many of these books actually haven't been banned, they've been challenged in public schools based on appropriateness. Concerned parents have found issue with explicit sexuality, profanity, and political advocacy.
It's interesting that those who so oppose censorship engage in it themselves. Public schools select books for their students based on their own criteria, pursuant to what they want to teach students. Some books are selected, some aren't. Some previously used books are discontinued. May we ask, why is their criteria not regarded as censorship, while parents who does not want their elementary school children to read the f*** word are censors?
Not on the ALA list is the Bible, the most banned book in history. Also, the ALA doesn't seem to mind this book's suppression, as there is no mention of it on their website. The fact of the matter is that the ALA is engaged in the most insidious kind of censorship, the soft censorship of ignoring contrary ideas. A bastion of left-wing politics, you won't find them howling and screaming against the suppression of conservative ideas or conservative books. In fact, children have themselves been censored.
Government officials like teachers do not like to be told what to do. They proclaim themselves the experts, they disdain contrarian parents, and they have set themselves up as the final arbiter of what is educationally valuable and appropriate, ironically deeming anyone who disagrees as a censor.
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