Emma B - I think all of us need to take a step back. Carol is right, she did not say that books were banned but she was reacting to what had been presented as fact with the opening thread and the title and the link.

Long before you posted your link to the Anchorage Daily News, the truth was discussed.

The list is being spread across the internet, and it is dangerous. It is like a bad chain letter. Here is one of the e-mails I received from an individual I deeply repect, but he did not check his facts:

SARA PALLIN'S BOOKS FOR BANNING

Like many of you I am nearly speechless at the selection of a self-described hockey mom with less than 2 years of experience as a governor (in one of the least populated states) as a vice presidential nominee. Even if McCain's advanced age were not an issue, we all need to worry about the prospect of Sara Pallin being but a heartbeat away from the presidency. My God, if the incompetent Bush were not enough for us to endure over the past 8 years, now we have to imagine a White House with Pallin riding shotgun. Can you imagine how the right wing would respond if any Democrat ever tried to bring in someone as inexperienced and blatantly unfit for the job? Trooper-gate notwithstanding, and of course the phony holier-than-thou business, but there's something much scarier going on with this former beauty queen from the much-celebrated "small town America" who is now on the national stage.

Satah Pallin made a strong attempt, during her years as mayor, to be sure that her values--and only her values--would be reprresented in Wasilla, Alaska's library. Below is a list of the many classic books she fought hard to have BANNED; this list comes from the Wasilla Library's own records. A glance over this list will clarify that this woman, who is another link in the chain of conservative tethers on the people of this country, fits in so well with the neo-fascist regime we are just now trying to forget. Many of these books make strong statements which are if not anti-capitalist then at least pro-grassroots movements. Other books feature a strong, hard to face view at a future caught up in totlitarian worlds. But some others simply question the military or turn a young boy into a folk hero. At least one of these books is the story of a mentally retarded young man's trials, tribulations and amazing growth while being tested in a lab environment. Why the objection? Perhaps her great fear of science is showing through. Or her fear of social unrest and upheavel. Or her fear of the occult; heaven forbid someone should enjoy a fantasy story like any of the Harry Potter books. They probably conjure up Satan. Surely some of Stephan King's books must or any books on Halloween or stuff by Maurice Sendak (!), or Pallin wcouldn't have objected to these so harshly. Its for our own good, you know.

You'll note that books which try to normalize gay relationships gotta go. Naturally. The proud mother and mayor couldn't allow any 2-mommy families to sit on a bookshelf near any of her good books on etiquette. Oooh, quick, toss out ANYTHING by Arthur Miller or John Steinbeck; those rabble-rousing upstarts. And just in case any women (or African Americans) get too high-minded, better burn 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", too. Just to be sure. Shit---almost left out 'Catcher in the Rye'. Oooh, that's one that most people EXPECT to be banned, so why leave it out? And some of those nasty Tarzan books just feel icky. I mean, God forbid that nice European man gets too close to a monkey or something. mmmmmmm

OKay, okay, you say---so she's another crusading Jesus freak who can't leave well enough alone. Its just the stuff that's dirty or a little too strange that she's banning. No problem. Then what in hell puts 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' on this list, or 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or 'The Color Purple'? I am sure we can all venture to guess, but this list, taken as a whole represents some of the greatest books this country has produced, alongside a bunch of fun things and a few titles that wouldn't attract many of us, but---so what? Yet, Sara Pallin could never leave it at 'so what?'. And that's what makes this person so goddamned frightening. She felt the need to try to take away opportunities from her own townfolk, tried to steal a wealth of knowledge and fantasy from them. No amount of standing ovations at her speeches can ever disappear this fact---then-Mayor Pallin attempted to tap into the fascist playbook. That's the bottom line. And when the local librarian fought these extreme measures, she found herself reading the Want Ads: the jack-booted hockey mom fired her for protecting the reading rights of Wasilla's citizens.

So look over the below list and imagine life without some of these book Ms Pallin so desperately wants to keep out of readers' hands. And then imagine some of her actions if she ever becomes vice president.

In Solidarity,
XXXXXXXXXXX

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
>   A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
>   Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
>   As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
>   Blubber by Judy Blume
>   Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
>   Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
>   Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
>   Carrie by Stephen King
>   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
>   Christine by Stephen King
>   Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
>   Cujo by Stephen King
>   Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
>   Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
>   Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
>   Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
>   Decameron by Boccaccio
>   East of Eden by John Steinbeck
>   Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
>   Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John
> Cleland
>   Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
>   Forever by Judy Blume
>   Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
>   Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
>   Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
>   Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
>   Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
>   Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
>   Have to Go by Robert Munsch
>   Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
>   How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
>   Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
>   I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
>   Impressions edited by Jack Booth
>   In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
>   It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
>   James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
>   Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
>   Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
>   Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
>   Lord of the Flies by William Golding
>   Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
>   Lysistrata by Aristophanes
>   More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
>   My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and
> Christopher Collier
>   My House by Nikki Giovanni
>   My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
>   Night Chills by Dean Koontz
>   Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
>   On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
>   One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander
> Solzhenitsyn
>   One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
>   One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
>   Ordinary People by Judith Guest
>   Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health
> Collective
>   Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
>   Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
>   Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin
> Schwartz
>   Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
>   Separate Peace by John Knowles
>   Silas Marner by George Eliot
>   Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
>   Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
>   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
>   The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
>   The Bastard by John Jakes
>   The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
>   The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
>   The Color Purple by Alice Walker
>   The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
>   The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
>   The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
>   The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
>   The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
>   The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
>   The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
>   The Living Bible by William C. Bower
>   The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
>   The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles
> Wibbelsman
>   The Pigman by Paul Zindel
>   The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
>   The Shining by Stephen King
>   The Witches by Roald Dahl
>   The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
>   Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
>   To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
>   Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
>   Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the
> Merriam-Webster
>   Editorial Staff
>   Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the
> Halloween
>   Symbols by Edna Barth