THE MISSOURIAN
July 20, 2012
"Sunshine requests for public records of book challenges were sent to all 566 Missouri school districts asking for all correspondence regarding book challenges since Jan. 1, 2008. Responses to the requests came in from 495 of the school districts. There were 51 titles challenged in 32 school districts, including one in Columbia. Many of the challenges had less to do with the overall content of a book but more to do with whether it was appropriate for certain age groups. Others argued that the books they were challenging were inconsistent with community values or that they contained language and references to behavior that conflicted with school conduct rules."
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There was some trumpeting today during faculty development that the Campus Read is on some banned book lists. One thing that was unfortunately left out of the discussion was why the book has been "banned" in some places. This quote from the posted article is important to the discussion: "Many of the challenges had less to do with the overall content of a book but more to do with whether it was appropriate for certain age groups."
I don't know that anyone who should be taken seriously has proposed a ban on The Hunger Games for college-aged students. But assigning the book as required reading for 6th graders is inappropriate in my opinion. And I'm not alone in this as the book's publisher, Scholastic Press, also lists the book as 13+. The average 6th grader is only 11 or 12.
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