This past week, the school's ACLU student organization made a banned books presentation featuring books banned, restricted, or challenged in Texas schools. It wasn't very suprising to see Tom Sawyer on the list of challenged books since that books has always irked some parents, but a few books surprised me. 

A lot of the books banned/restricted talked about the physical and psychological aspsects of puberty. Apparently, learning about your body through medical books is something that children should be kept in the dark about. Or worse, learning from their friends is better. It's also unfortunate that other banned books talked about self-esteem and body image issues.  I'd like to see a parent challenge the Bible being in the school library--it includes just as much violence and sexual content as some of the books that have been banned. 

The most surprising book that a parent had a problem with was a geography book that talked about looking at the world through a global perspective. Seriously, who can be offended by a geography book? Well, this parent had a problem with the fact that the book didn't cover TEKS material and said that a different book should be used or "no book at all." I'm glad that the school district decided to keep it.  

For information about what books have been challenged by a particular school district, download the 2007 Banned Books Report: http://www.aclutx.org/projects/bannedbooks.php.