Kids Are Reading ‘The Hunger Games?’ OH NO SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

04/10/2012 1:00 pm by

HUNGER GAMES COVERS Kids Are Reading The Hunger Games? OH NO SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

The Hunger Games trilogy just got itself another honor. All three books have snagged the coveted #3 spot on the American Library Association’s annual list of most frequently challenged books.

You know, it’s actually kind of comforting — in this age of Kindles and iPads and redesigned not-really-for-books-bookshelves at Ikea — that a popular BOOK, the kind people READ, can still bring out the crazy THINK OF THE CHILDREN pearl-clutchers. Just like old-fashioned-y days of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret yore. However, once you dig deeper into the actual complaints, it’s painfully obvious that the folks bitching about the books haven’t…uh, actually read the books.

The ALA lists “anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence” as the reasons the books are challenged and formally requested to be removed from libraries. Yes, Katniss is sooooo “anti-family,” what with sacrificing herself for her little sister. And as a person currently on a diet I guess the endless descriptions of delicious, decadent food were pretty “insensitive.” But I’m DEFINITELY the wrong person to ask about “offensive language” because I am literally immune to it. You could probably swap our copy of Goodnight Moon with Go The F*ck To Sleep and it would take me at least four pages to notice.

I have NO idea where the “anti-ethnic” and “occult/satanic” complaints are coming from — maybe some parents are confusing the casting brouhaha in the movie for the book? And mad because Katniss didn’t like, accept Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior in the arena, and then escape with Him via jetpack while the Gamemakers are all, “OH MY GOD THERE’S ONLY ONE SET OF FOOTPRINTS ON THE SAND!” or something?

tumblr luerg10Zyc1qfengno1 500 Kids Are Reading The Hunger Games? OH NO SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

ZOMG IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

Violence, well…yes. There is that. Kind of the reason I’m not reading them as bedtime stories to my kindergartner just yet. But if I had a teenager? I’d be yanking that Twilight garbage out of their hands and SHOVING The Hunger Games at them.

(The Twilight saga does not appear on the ALA’s list for 2011, incidentally. Poor Twilight and Harry Potter! You failed to bring about a total collapse in the morality of our youth and convert them all to satanism, and nobody cares about you anymore. )

Here’s the complete list. I cannot believe Brave New World and To Kill A Mockingbird are still cracking the Top Ten. (And yet no Huck Finn or Judy Blume? DAMN KIDS TODAY.)

1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

2) The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence

4) My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint

7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit

8) What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit

9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit

10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Offensive language; racism

source, source, source

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About Amy Corbett Storch

Amy blogs at amalah.com, and can be found on Twitter @amalah. She is Team Zombie, though sometimes she is known to side with the Plants.

Filed Under: Books, Books You Should Have Read By Now, Gossip, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Twilight Saga, Wackadoos Tagged With: , ,


From Our Partners

  • http://twitter.com/hpstrawberries Hannah

    Can I just say that the fact a children’s guide to pregnancy is on this list because of “nudity” and “sex education” is a total headdesk for me? Yeesh.

  • livi

    And except for the pregnancy book, I’m sure none of these have actual pictures of nudity. Please also note how many of these books are written by women. 

  • NTE

    I can’t believe a guide to pregnancy & birth is on here: how exactly would you write that in a non-sexually explicit way?  I just.. don’t get it.  Also, I’m adding the only author I haven’t read (Kim Dong Hwa) to my TBR pile immediately. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=620700363 Shawn Elizabeth Bridgeman

    Psst, Amy/MamaPop: If you linked those book titles to their Amazon listings, can’t you get a kick-back or something (I think officially called “affiliate revenue”)?

    I bring this up primarily because I would have loved to click through to the Amazon listing of the books I haven’t read and add them to my wishlist/cart.

  • SuzyQuzey

    I despise any type of literary censorship.  Who are these ALA people anyway?

  • Tyskkvinna

    anti-ethnic? What does that even mean?

     

  • Norm Nelson

     I would give my left nut to have authored a book on the Most Challenged list. That is the surest sign that you’re doing something right, and it’s working, and; HIGH-FIVE, Suzanne Collins! You’re in an honorable group.

  • MollyGMartin

    Brave New World is on the list?  I think that pretty well sums it up.

  • Nicole

    Yay, a new “To Read” list!

  • Beth

    I bought my 12-year-old son the Sherman Alexie book last summer. He reads like a crazy person, and I was just trying to keep him in books. I picked it out because of the cover.

    He read it in two hours at his grandparents’ house, and then he called me at work: “Ummm, Mom? That book had some stuff in it that…ummm…”

    I Googled it and found out that it was basic coming-of-age stuff, nothing too horrible. So I asked my son if he needed or wanted to talk about anything that was in the book. No? Coolness.

    And we went about our business.