Banned Books Week 2012 is finally upon us! We hope you will celebrate the freedom to read during the week by reading your favorite banned/challenged book. If you need ideas on what to read, check out the timeline of banned and challenged books. Today we feature the year 2005 and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris.
“It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” was published in 1994 and has faced intense criticism for its frank discussions and illustrations of the changes young people experience during puberty. In 2005, it was challenged but retained at the Holt Middle School parent library in Fayetteville, AR, despite a parent’s complaint that it was sexually explicit. It also topped ALA’s list of frequently challenged books in 2005. Two years later, the book would make national news when a woman objecting to its content in Lewiston, ME checked out copies of the book and refused to return them, prompting such headlines as, “Grandma Refuses to Return Library Book, Could Face Jail Time.”
For more information about Banned Books Week, please visit www.ala.org/bbooks.
