UPDATE: What books did Sarah Palin want to ban from library?

Sep 04 2008

And the hits just keep on coming! I only say that because the story about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanting to ban certain books from the library has taken root and is garnering more attention across the internet (especially the blogosphere). I wrote about it in this post, and generally felt disgusted that someone would want to actually deny the pubic specific books because that person found the books objectionable to his/her beliefs.

Then, this evening as I was blindly surfing the web, I came across a list of books Palin wanted removed from the public library. I emphasize the word "public" because that’s what is important – a public library that is supposed to serve the public, including people of all beliefs and creeds. If a book is found offensive by a person, then don’t check that book out!

You can read more on Palin’s views on this post from librarian.net. But the real meat is the actual list. Now, I have no way to verify that these are really the books she wanted banned. They are the "usual suspects" though, that is, books that always appear to be targeted for the chopping block by one person or another.

I should mention that the list comes from a commenter on the blog, so it’s very hard to verify the validity of the list of books that Palin wanted banned. I’m going to do some more research and see if I can find trustworthy source to see if the list can be verified. More to come as events warrant…

4 Responses

This is especially astounding to me, because some of these books I was *required* to read in school:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
And come on, Blubber? Little Red Riding Hood? Really?

Susan 9/5/2008 8:30 am
She wanted the DICTIONARY banned?! Wow…I have no words right now…

Krisan Matthews 9/5/2008 12:42 pm
I am a college professor — at a public university — and I teach several of these books regularly, including The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night. If Palin is elected, is she going to try and control what I decide to teach in my classroom? Will she ban works that have been deemed classics for centuries?

Jessica Wolfe 9/8/2008 7:25 am
Um, that last Harry Potter book on the list didn’t come out until 2005 (after she was no longer mayor.) So while it seems pretty clear she did very much look into banning books, I think the list is bogus.

Joe 9/8/2008 5:10 pm