Book Burning

Why ? Before the printing press, burning books was an effective form of censorship. Each book was handmade, so there were only a few books. You could control ideas and information by burning books. Recently governments have used book burnings to intimidate people and show their power.

May 10, 1933 in Germany University students burned more than 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books. Nazi leaders gave speeches, bands played, and people cheered as books were tossed into the fire.

Video of Nazi Book Burning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ppe9WBLu_w

What was “un-German”? Anything about another type of government. Anything written by an author from another country. Any German writing that was against Nazi leadership. Any books by Jewish authors.

Heinrich Heine A German Jewish poet He wrote a play called Almansor. The play has a famous line, “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.“ In English - "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."

May 10, 1933 in the U.S. In New York, 100,000 people marched for six hours to protest the Nazi’s book burning.

Comic Book Burning 1948 15 years later, hundreds of comic books were burned in West Virginia and New York. The news reported the comic book burnings and many other cities burned their children’s comic books.

2010 In August 2010, a Florida church announced it would burn copies of the Qur’an on September 11. They changed their minds.

2011 Another church in decided to burn the Qur’an. They did on March 20, 2011.

Fahrenheit 451 http://digitalbooktalk.com/?p=19

Banned Books Banned books are books that people don’t want other people to read. Sometimes they want the books to be burned. Sometimes they want them to be taken out of school libraries. Sometimes they want teachers to stop reading the books in school.

Banned Books People who want to ban books think they are keeping America safe for children. They think that these books can make kids become bad if kids read them. Other people think Americans have the right to free speech and that people shouldn’t control what other people read or say. They think people should only be able to tell their own children what they can or cannot read, not everyone else’s kids.

Banned Book Week Banned Book Week is celebrated every year by people who want to stop people from banning books. They encourage everyone to talk about this topic and to read books that they feel comfortable with reading. This year’s celebration is Sept. 30 – Oct. 6. It is the 30th anniversary of Banned Book Week.

Here are some banned book titles.

Huckleberry Finn Language, and racism

Lord of the Flies Swearing, violence

Harry Potter Witchcraft, violence

Dictionary Inappropriate words

The Light in the Attic Disrespect, horror, and violence One of the most banned books in the 1990s

A Wrinkle in Time The battle between good and evil is too close to religious views

The Diary of Anne Frank It’s a downer.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The author has the same name as a Marxist and no one checked to see if it was the same person.

James and the Giant Peach Violence

The Witches Violence, witchcraft

Little Women Too feminist

To Kill a Mockingbird Swearing, racism

Bridge to Terabithia Swearing, negative view of life, death, witchcraft, and disrespectful to adults

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Scary, graphic pictures

Halloween ABC It’s about Halloween.

Stephen King Swearing, violent, scary, witchcraft

The Giver Euthanasia and suicide

The Twilight Series Vampires and werewolves

The Hunger Games Too scary and violent

The Lorax It makes loggers look bad

Speak It deals with rape

The Chronicles of Narnia Insulting to religions Rebellious children Magic

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The Oompa-Loompas used to be African Pygmies and some people thought Roald Dahl was being racist

Grimm’s Fairy Tales Too violent, scary, witchcraft

A Series of Unfortunate Events Swearing, death, dark themes

Captain Underpants Series It’s about underpants, toilets, and bathroom stuff – Ewwww!

Call of the Wild Animal cruelty, violence

The BFG Farting, kidnapping, disobeying parents

Whirligig Drinking, drunk driving, attempted suicide

Dangerous Girls Vampires

The Sign of the Beaver Racism

Discussion What do you think? Is there a valid reason to burn or ban books? Where is the line? Where are we headed in the future?