Banned in the U.S.A.

Since the first edition was published to acclaim and awards in 1994, librarians have relied on the work of noted intellectual freedom authority Herbert N. Foerstel. This expanded edition presents a thorough analysis of the current state of book banning in schools and public libraries, offering ready reference material on major incidents, legal cases, and annotated entries on the most frequently challenged books. Every section of this work has been significantly rewritten, updated, or expanded to reflect those developments. In-depth accounts of three new landmark book banning incidents are featured, along with a discussion of recent Supreme Court decisions involving censorship on the Internet and in book publishing, and a consideration of their implications for book banning in schools and public libraries. Two new interviews with authors of banned books—David Guterson and Leslea Newman—join the interviews with authors profiled in the first edition, many of which have been updated. The heart of the book is a Survey of Banned Books, revised with annotated entries on the 50 most frequently challenged books for 1996 through 2000; the Harry Potter series tops the list. Finally, all new appendixes feature an updated ALA list of Most Frequently Challenged Books and Authors Through 2000 and graphs that help to clarify key information.

HERBERT N. FOERSTEL is the former Head of Branch Libraries at the University of Maryland, College Park. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Security Archives. He is a noted authority on intellectual freedom and has published seven previous books on the topic for Greenwood Publishing, including Banned in the Media (1998) and From Watergate to Monicagate: Ten Controversies in Modern Journalism and Media (2001).