1. Book Burning

2. Why ?
Before the printing press, burning books was an effective form of censorship.
Each book was handmade, so there were only a few books. You could control ideas and information by burning books.
Recently governments have used book burnings to intimidate people and show their power.

3. May 10, 1933 in Germany
University students burned more than 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books.
Nazi leaders gave speeches, bands played, and people cheered as books were tossed into the fire.

4. Video of Nazi Book Burning

5. What was “un-German”? Anything about another type of government.
Anything written by an author from another country.
Any German writing that was against Nazi leadership.
Any books by Jewish authors.

6. Heinrich Heine A German Jewish poet He wrote a play called Almansor.
The play has a famous line, “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.“
In English - "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."

7. May 10, 1933 in the U.S.
In New York, 100,000 people marched for six hours to protest the Nazi’s book burning.

8. Comic Book Burning 1948
15 years later, hundreds of comic books were burned in West Virginia and New York.
The news reported the comic book burnings and many other cities burned their children’s comic books.

9. 2010
In August 2010, a Florida church announced it would burn copies of the Qur’an on September 11.
They changed their minds.

10. 2011 Another church in decided to burn the Qur’an.
They did on March 20, 2011.

11. Fahrenheit 451

12. Banned Books
Banned books are books that people don’t want other people to read.
Sometimes they want the books to be burned.
Sometimes they want them to be taken out of school libraries.
Sometimes they want teachers to stop reading the books in school.

13. Banned Books
People who want to ban books think they are keeping America safe for children.
They think that these books can make kids become bad if kids read them.
Other people think Americans have the right to free speech and that people shouldn’t control what other people read or say.
They think people should only be able to tell their own children what they can or cannot read, not everyone else’s kids.

14. Banned Book Week
Banned Book Week is celebrated every year by people who want to stop people from banning books.
They encourage everyone to talk about this topic and to read books that they feel comfortable with reading.
This year’s celebration is Sept. 30 – Oct. 6.
It is the 30th anniversary of Banned Book Week.

15. Here are some banned book titles.

16. Huckleberry Finn
Language,
and racism

17. Lord of the Flies
Swearing, violence

18. Harry Potter
Witchcraft, violence

19. Dictionary
Inappropriate words

20. The Light in the Attic Disrespect, horror, and violence
One of the most banned books in the 1990s

21. A Wrinkle in Time
The battle between good and evil is too close to religious views

22. The Diary of Anne Frank
It’s a downer.

23. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
The author has the same name as a Marxist and no one checked to see if it was the same person.

24. James and the Giant Peach
Violence

25. The Witches
Violence, witchcraft

26. Little Women
Too feminist

27. To Kill a Mockingbird
Swearing, racism

28. Bridge to Terabithia
Swearing, negative view of life, death, witchcraft, and disrespectful to adults

29. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary, graphic pictures

30. Halloween ABC
It’s about Halloween.

31. Stephen King
Swearing, violent, scary, witchcraft

32. The Giver
Euthanasia and suicide

33. The Twilight Series
Vampires and werewolves

34. The Hunger Games
Too scary and violent

35. The Lorax
It makes loggers look bad

36. Speak
It deals with rape

37. The Chronicles of Narnia
Insulting to religions
Rebellious children
Magic

38. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Oompa-Loompas
used to be African Pygmies
and some people thought
Roald Dahl was being racist

39. Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Too violent, scary, witchcraft

40. A Series of Unfortunate Events
Swearing, death,
dark themes

41. Captain Underpants Series
It’s about underpants,
toilets, and bathroom
stuff – Ewwww!

42. Call of the Wild
Animal cruelty, violence

43. The BFG
Farting, kidnapping,
disobeying parents

44. Whirligig
Drinking, drunk driving,
attempted suicide

45. Dangerous Girls
Vampires

46. The Sign of the Beaver
Racism

47. Discussion What do you think?
Is there a valid reason to burn or ban books?
Where is the line?
Where are we headed in the future?