Banned Book Week promotes freedom to read

PHOENIX - Since writers have been putting pen to paper and writing books, there have been people who have wanted to ban books.

In an effort to promote the freedom to read, Banned Books Week kicked off Saturday to celebrate the importance of the First Amendment.

Held yearly during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted banning of books across the United States.

This year's theme is "Think for yourself and let others do the same."

Book banning may seem like a thing of the past. But the American Library Association's Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009 still includes a smattering of classics as well as 21st century pop literature like the "Twilight" series.

More than half of the challenges for the year came from two states: Pennsylvania and Texas, according to the Christian Science Monitor .

Here is the ALA's Top 10 list for 2009. Chances are you have heard of a few of these books.

10. "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier.

9. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker.

8. "The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler.

7. "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult.

6. "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

5. "Twilight" (series) by Stephenie Meyer.

4. "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

3. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky.

2. "And Tango Makes Three" by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.

1. "ttyl; ttfn; 18r, g8r" (series) by Lauren Myracle.

In the two decades the ALA has been keeping track, parents have been responsible for 48 percent of all challenges. The most common reason: sexual explicitness (33 percent), followed by offensive language (26 percent), and material "unsuited to age group" (21 percent).