AMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Some Barnes & Noble bookstores are now including “banned book” sections as school districts and public libraries remove select titles from their shelves.

There are currently 186 books listed by Barnes & Noble in the section online. Those books include “Lord of the Flies,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction” and many more. Some Barnes & Noble locations have also dedicated small sections in their stores to these titles.

Several of the books listed in the banned books section of the website are titles that were pulled from shelves in Florida’s Polk County school libraries in January. The district removed 16 books in total after a local group determined they were “inappropriate” and contained “obscene material.”

On its website, the book store giant explains that literary works are usually banned on “moral, religious or political grounds.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Holocaust banned in Tennessee school district
“They were believed to be obscene or too controversial to be read by society,” Barnes & Noble explained. “Books that explore race, sexuality and new concepts and ideas are still often prohibited by certain communities, although they can easily be purchased in most bookstores.”

The company does not, however, instruct all of its stores to have a banned book section. A company spokesperson tells Nexstar each Barnes & Noble store gets to decide how to display books.

“We do not direct how choices are made and our displays are constantly changing. Which individual titles are included in any display is chosen by the booksellers in a store. We do not know how many stores have chosen to make a display of banned books. Given the wide discussion of the banning of books, it is probably one that is popular in bookstores everywhere, including those of Barnes & Noble. We also have a page on BN.com devoted to banned books which shows the bestsellers amongst them.”

BARNES & NOBLE SPOKESPERSON
The top banned and challenged books, according to Barnes & Noble include:

“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
“Maus” by Art Spiegelman
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
“1984 by George Orwell”
“Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
“Animal Farm” by George Orwell
“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
“Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi
“The 1619 Project” by Nikole Hannah-Jones
“Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut
Blog posts on the Barnes & Noble website relating to banned books include a post about banned books week in 2021, “7 Banned Books That Should Be Required Reading” and “11 Books That Were Banned for Completely Ridiculous Reasons.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to identify one of the book titles as “Lord of the Flies.”

link: https://wgntv.com/news/some-ba...-recent-controversy/

Because: Marketing

They keep throwing around the word "banned" when the reality is it's just not required reading anymore. Of course, once you turn over your thinking and agency to the government, being told you don't have to do a thing, is essentially the same as being told you cannot do a thing.

Tell people that something is Taboo and they will flock to it to see why...

Haven't been in many book stores, the ones close by are long gone, there is one up at a mall you can walk through, get a startbutts coffee on the way to the Apple store as a shortcut...

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:
They keep throwing around the word "banned" when the reality is it's just not required reading anymore.

Some of these hubbubs in the past have been caused by removing books from curricula, but that isn't all that has happened this time.

At least one school district published a list of hundreds of books that were prohibited from being included in school libraries, used in classrooms, provided by teachers to students, etc.

It isn't a "ban" in the historic, the-government-says-nobody-can-read-this-book book ban sense, but in the context of a school district, "banned" does not seem like a wholly inappropriate word choice.

I did not seen Huck Finn on that list.

Sounds like a decent start on a required reading list for any well rounded person to me. Except the commie race books, I have all the classic novels listed on my book case now. Picked up lot of them for .25c to $1 as student versions that had been donated to my local friends of the library store that sells books by supplement the library budget.

Step 1. Ban SOME books.

Step 2. Ban MOST books.

Step 3. Ban ALL books.

Step 4. Ban SOME people speaking out.

Step 5. Got it yet?

It’s funny, most of those titles were required reading when I grew up…

I can remember in class discussions and the book reports.

Most of those books are on my best friends home school reading agenda for his middle school children.

Congratulations to Barnes and Noble for stepping in it. Have not been in of the their stores in 10+ years.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
I did not seen Huck Finn on that list.

Came to say this.

It never will be with the current trends. The accurate rendition of vernacular speech from an era has to be sacrificed to the greater good. They will abolish historical accuracy to achieve their goals and you will like it.

Funny. The 1619 topic has been discussed around here as it is related to critical race theory.

Outside of that, the rest of those books have never been mentioned here. The books I have heard of both here and nationally tend to depict graphic sexual acts. Books like Lawn Boy and Gender Queer.

I suspect this is more "fake news" trying to get some outraged about what "parents are trying to do at schools".

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Because: Marketing

100%

That’s the first thing I thought when I began reading that article. This gets attention which gets sales. Not a terrible strategy for them.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Funny. The 1619 topic has been discussed around here as it is related to critical race theory.

Outside of that, the rest of those books have never been mentioned here. The books I have heard of both here and nationally tend to depict graphic sexual acts. Books like Lawn Boy and Gender Queer.

...

I was aware that several of the books on the list were banned from some public or school district lists, but there are a few , such as the two you mentioned that not only promote sexual activities between children and adults, but also use graphic illustrations to depict the activities.

I'm no fan of banning books, but there are some that shouldn't be available or accessible to children and tax payers shouldn't have to foot the bill for that material.

quote:

I'm no fan of banning books,

School libraries do not own every book ever written. The purpose of a school library is to curate material pertinent to the school curriculum.

These books can still be found in your public libraries, or your local book store. Nobody is banning them.

One of the common arguments I hear is that the kids will be exposed to these types of things anyway. They have phones, they're on the internet. My response is that they will also be exposed to drugs and alcohol. As such, should we serve those in the cafeteria?

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

I'm no fan of banning books,

School libraries do not own every book ever written. The purpose of a school library is to curate material pertinent to the school curriculum.

Agreed.

quote:

These books can still be found in your public libraries, or your local book store. Nobody is banning them.

While I agree with your larger point, I was pointing out that some material should be prevented from being accessed by minors. Whether that's called a "ban", "age restricted", "restricted access" or whatever other term applies, I hope a culture that cares about raising their children in a healthy and moral way can agree on that.

quote:

One of the common arguments I hear is that the kids will be exposed to these types of things anyway. They have phones, they're on the internet. My response is that they will also be exposed to drugs and alcohol. As such, should we serve those in the cafeteria?

Agreed, and that's an excellent response. Not that I find myself in many discussions about censorship or the banning of material in schools, but if I do I'll be using that argument.

^^^
Agree.

And the use of the word "banned" in the context of school libraries is a cheap tactic designed to inflame other's emotions.

These books can be purchased, found in many public libraries, and freely read in public.

You would not find "I Am Curious (Yellow)", "Portnoy's Complaint", "Brandywine's War" and a host of many others in church or synagogue.