The Holy Bible: Top Most Challenged Book, According to ALA

The Holy Bible: Top Most Challenged Book, According to ALA

Last year, the American Library Association (ALA) fielded 275 formal challenges to materials in schools and libraries. Making the top 10 list of challenges for the first time: the Bible. The reason: “religious viewpoint". The ideological grounds for the religious book’s appearance on the 2015 Most Challenged List likely doesn’t tell the whole story, says James LaRue, who directs the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF).

“You have people who feel that if a school library buys a copy of the Bible, it’s a violation of church and state,” LaRue told the Associated Press. “And sometimes there’s a retaliatory action, where a religious group has objected to a book and a parent might respond by objecting to the Bible.”  Just because the Bible is challenged doesn’t mean that the ALA recommends its removal. The Bible “does not violate the separation of church and state as long as the library does not endorse or promote the views included” in it, the OIF states in its guidelines.

This isn’t the Bible’s first brush with banishment. “The Bible has been criticized, challenged, and banned by individuals, groups, and governments through centuries of persecution,” Bible Gateway general manager Rachel Barach told CT.

ALA last year’s top challenged books…

Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.​

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).

I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).

The Holy Bible
Reasons: Religious viewpoint.

Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”). 

Habibi, by Craig Thompson
Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter

Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).