ALA's Banned Books Week: Steinbeck, Tolkien, and Captain Underpants

Today is the beginning of the American Library Association's Banned Books Week 2010. Celebrate!

Re-read a personal favorite, or select a title from the growing list of books that become targets for censorship across the nation. Using this map,you can even choose a book that has come under fire in your own neighborhood! Forget old stand-bys like To Kill a Mockingbird or Fahrenheit 451 -- raise local hackles by reading the incendiary Captain Underpants. Here's a list of ten surprising books under attack by censorship groups around the nation. As Pam Gaulin writes, the pen is mightier than the sword and, apparently, it can also be more offensive.

Captain Underpants Some folks had their underwear in a bunch over this children's book series by Dav Pilkey. The "Captain Underpants" series -- about two fourth-graders and their superhero of a principal -- was one of the top 10 most frequently banned and challenged books for 2002, 2004 and 2005. The books were said to contain offensive language, to be sexually explicit and to be anti-family.

The Lord of the Rings J.R.R Tolkien's book was burned, not in the fires of Mount Doom, but outside of a church in Alamogordo, N.M., in 2001 because it was viewed as "satanic."

Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary When it comes to banning books, even the dictionary gets no respect. The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary was pulled from the shelf of a school in Menifee, Calif. The offending term in the dictionary? "Oral sex." The entry references of the dictionary also included cunnilingus and fellatio, which were not cited as the reasons for pulling the dictionary off the shelf. Merriam-Webster has been publishing language reference books for more than 150 years. They were bound to offend someone along the way.

Fahrenheit 451 Could a book about censorship really be banned? Absolutely. Enter Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The book has been banned by the Mississippi School District (1999). It's also No. 69 on the American Library Association's list of top banned/challenged books from 2000 to 2009.

Harry Potter series One of the most surprising banned books sits at the No. 1 spot on the ALA list. It's not even a book. It's the entire Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter series is to teens what Star Wars was to an entire generation of now-40-somethings. The series has been challenged for occultism, Satanism, violence, being anti-family and having religious viewpoint. The series is No. 1 on the ALA's most challenged book list for 2000 to 2009.

The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is not just another classic on the list. The book was originally banned in California due to obscenity, but the catalyst behind the banning was based more in embarrassment: The people in the region did not like how their area and the workers' situation was portrayed in the novel.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Most parents of kids under 5 have seen Eric Carle's art accompanying the book by Bill Martin. The Texas Board of Education banned the book, in January 2010, because it thought the book was written by the same Bill Martin who penned the nonchildren's book Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.

James and the Giant Peach Author Roald Dahl is no stranger to being banned. His book "The Witches" is on the ALA's 100 most frequently challenged books for 1990 to 1999 for its depictions of women and witches. But what about James and his peach? Was there witchcraft at work? James was disobedient and there was violence in the book.

American Heritage Dictionary (1969) The American Heritage Dictionary of 1969 was also banned in 1978 from a library in Eldon, Mo., because of 39 objectionable words. The dictionary continued to cause trouble as far away as Alaska, where it was banned by the Anchorage School Board in 1987 for its inclusion of slang words, including "balls."

Grimm's Fairy Tales Fairy tales have always held a precarious place in children's literature. On one side, readers have fairy-tale purists who lament the morals lost in fairy tales that have been too cleaned up. Others object to any violence in fairy tales. A couple of California school districts found a whole new reason to ban Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1989: misuse of alcohol. Little Red Riding Hood's basket for her grandmother includes wine. Maybe it wasn't a California red.