InfoBrief

It’s Banned Books Week, an annual event bringing together the entire book community to celebrate the freedom to read.

According to the American Library Association 307 separate titles were challenged in the United States last year alone.

To celebrate we’ve put up an exhibit in the reading room featuring some of the most frequently banned or challenged titles of the past year. Be sure to stop by and check it out as we’ll adding more titles as the week continues.

The top ten most frequently challenged books for the previous year as reported by the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom include:

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
   Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
   Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

For more information check out bannedbooksweek.org and for additional lists of recent and classic titles that have been challenged or banned in communities across the country check out The American Library Association’s Frequently Challenged Books page.

As mentioned in the Law School’s Spotlight series last week, the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and the International Human Rights Clinic, both of Cornell Law School, and the Center for Law and Justice recently released a new handbook on juvenile law in Zambia.

The Handbook on Juvenile Law in Zambia, co-authored by students Chris Sarma ’15 and Amy Stephenson ’15, is the first handbook of its kind on Zambian juvenile law. For more information on the background of the handbook check out the previously mentioned Spotlight article, but also you can also view the handbook itself on Scholarship@Cornell Law.

From the the abstract:

Juveniles who come into contact with the law are a particularly vulnerable group. They may be victims of abuse, in moral danger and in need of care, or unaware of their rights when they are accused of committing a crime. Zambia’s domestic laws recognize this vulnerability of juveniles and grant them special legal protections. One ongoing challenge for juvenile protection is the lack of a compendium on Zambian juvenile law.

To improve access to information on Zambian juvenile law, the Center for Law and Justice and Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic have co-authored this juvenile law handbook. The handbook offers a compendium of Zambian juvenile law, including the processing of juveniles in the criminal justice system. It synthesizes relevant constitutional and statutory law, case law, and international human rights law and highlights best practices that practitioners may consider when working on matters involving juveniles.

This handbook serves as a reminder that legal practitioners, judicial officers, and citizens alike are responsible for protecting the rights of juveniles. I hope that judges, magistrates, prosecutors, and legal officers will make frequent use of this handbook. Doing so will help to ensure that juveniles in Zambia are able to access justice through the courts.

For more on the latest scholarly articles from the law school faculty visit the repository at Scholarship@Cornell Law.