censorship

Presents a critical analysis of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, discussing why many people would like to see them banned from schools and libraries.

In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout visited Russia's greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Dr. Zhivago. Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But Pasternak thought it stood a chance of being published and read in the West. From Italy it made its way around the world to earn Pasternak the 1958 Pulitzer Prize in Literature. Copies were sold in Moscow and Leningrad on the Black Market and when Pasternak died in 1960 in Russia his funeral was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell.

Shares the story of how John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," published to much acclaim in April 1939, became the target of censors in Kern County, California, where the book was publicly burned and banned from schools and libraries.

Presents two of Alice Walker's short stories and part of "A Color Purple" with discussion on how they have been the subject of removal from tests, school libraries, and school curricula in the United States.

On February 14, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a call from a journalist informing him that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the first time Rushdie heard the word fatwa. His crime? Writing a novel, The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran." So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground for more than nine years, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. Asked to choose an alias that the police could use, he thought of combinations of the names of writers he loved: Conrad and Chekhov: Joseph Anton. How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for over nine years? What happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding.--From publisher description.

Examines the controversy, provides a chronology of events, and links the events to key statements by well-known persons in the chronology.

Examines the history of book censorship, looks at book banning as it relates to the works of John Steinbeck, provides information about the life of the prize-winning American author, and analyzes several of his works in an attempt to understand why they aroused controversy. Includes discussion questions and a time line.

A brief biography of twentieth-century author, Madeleine L'Engle that discusses her life and career, as well as the controversy over her work that some claim endorses the occult.

Through a review of the history of banned books, the outcry by some over the Harry Potter books and the call for them to be banned is discussed through a review of this popular fantasy series and brief biography of its author.