To celebrate Banned Books Week 2014, NCAC is hosting a trivia game contest online through September 27 and at the Brooklyn Book Fest on September 21. Submit your answers to [email protected] by the end of the month and those with the most correct answers win a prize!
1. What wildly popular teen vampire series was banned from primary schools and some middle schools in Australia due to its racy content?
2. THROWBACK! In the 16th century, this man was excommunicated for his schismatic works, which were also burned in a number of countries including Belgium, Germany, England and Spain.
3. QUOTES! The following quote by a Colorado mom refers to which 1924 short story, frequently used to teach irony in high schools: “I was outraged and appalled, they were talking about murder as a game.”
4. Chicago Public School administrators attempted to secretly ban what graphic novel memoir about the author’s girlhood in Iran in March of 2013?
5. In Brevard County, Florida, which summer smash of 2012 (popular amongst moms nationwide) was yanked out of circulation after the library director discovered its steamy content?
6. This adventure novel starring a canine named Buck was banned in Italy in 1929 and burned in Nazi bonfires during WWII because it was “too radical.”
7. Parents in Blue Springs, Missouri called this popular young adult book “lewd” and “twisted” while others have objected to its portrayals of infanticide and euthanasia.
8. This pop superstar caused a rash of library controversies in the early 1990s after her book “Sex” was released.
9. Last summer, a conservative activist referred to this 1999 YA novel about the aftermath of a sexual assault as “child pornography.”
10. QUOTES! To which book is former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels referring in the following quote: “It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page.”
11. Quotes! The following are quotes by Broomfield, Colorado residents about a novel written by a Nobel-laureate. “I would be outraged if my children had to read literature in school that was not wholesome and prudent.” Another added, “This is not appropriate reading material for anybody, let alone students!”
12. A school board member in Buffalo Grove, Illinois tried to have this 2002 environmentalist tome removed after she was misled by the appearance of the word “desire” in its title?
13. What book series featuring a scantily clad baby superhero has been challenged because it “taught students to be disrespectful” and for its “scatological storylines?
14. This American classic is one of the all-time most frequently challenged in schools because of its use of the n-word and because it portrays “racial hatred, racial division, racial separation and promotes white supremacy”?
15. What famous American horror writer — a number of whose books have also become films — has had over twenty of his stories and novels challenged?
16. What fruity Roald Dahl tome was banned from an elementary school in Lufkin, Texas because it contained the word “ass”?
17. What work of classic American Literature was banned from classroom use by a Michigan school because it dealt with a clergyman’s “involvement in fornication”?
18. What book has been called “amoral” and “Anti-Christian” because of its confessional exploration of a young girl’s adolescent body changes?
19. What children’s book about a young investigator was challenged in Ohio in 1983 because it “teaches children to lie, spy, back-talk and curse?”
20. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was removed from high school English classes in Merrimack, New Hampshire because it encouraged or supported what?
21. This title character may “speak for the trees” but he doesn’t speak for the foresting industry, who called for the book to be banned in Northern California.
22. In the 1970s, what children’s picture book by William Steig was challenged or removed in communities in 11 states because its characters, all animals, present police as pigs?
23. QUOTES! This author cites her childhood experiences growing up “gay (very gay) way out in the middle of cowboy country…” as the fuel for her debut novel, The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
24. Which John Green novel challenged in the Waukesha, Wisconsin School District for sexual content not suitable for teenagers has a title character named after one of the 50 United States?
25. Which futuristic thriller extols the use of digital self-defense and caused the cancellation of an entire summer reading program in Pensacola, FL? Hint: this book claims a place in the tradition of bold science-fiction novels like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.
26. This novel, published in 2003 by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, was adapted into an Academy Award nominated movie in 2007. In 2014, the book was removed from the Waukesha school district’s libraries when a parent objected to descriptions of violent acts and sexual content.
27. This “enjoyable” coming-of-age graphic novel by Alison Bechdel was assigned as a group read for first year students at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. In response, S.C. House of Representatives passed a budget that cut the precise amount of funding the college used for gay-themed books.
28. What children’s illustration book was challenged by a parent who “objected to the whimsical drawings of a cowboy taking a bath?”
29. QUOTES! What author opens his novel, Neverwhere with this quote: “I have never been to St. John’s Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood red cup and the beating of the wings of an eagle”? Hint: He is the guest of honor at our 2014 Benefit.
30. Three cheers for this graphic novel that recounts the misadventures of a trio of teenaged slacker geeks after they are roused to action when a female friend becomes romantically connected to a loutish quarterback.
31. A blood-stained smiley face is a recurring image in this graphic novel about a group of retired crime fighters who investigate and attempt to stop a plot to murder them. Unfortunately, parents in West Virginia and Florida were not smiling when the graphic violence in the novel came to light.
32. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman by Alan Moore is the story of a group of individuals brought together to protect the Empire. The library Director at Jessamine County Public Library is also extraordinary for dismissing two employee who kept the novel on permanent “checked out” status. Name two of the characters.
33. Maus became the first graphic novel to receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Twenty years later, a Polish-American complained about the portrayal of Poles as pigs, though he did not voice any concern about the depiction of Jews as mice and Germans as cats. Who is the author?
34. QUOTES! “As a child, I thought that life was the most horrible world anyone could ever live in, and that there had to be something better.” This coming-of-age graphic novel, based on the author’s own experiences of growing up in a religious family, was brought under parental fire for obscene illustrations that not even its title could cover up.
35. This graphic novel set in pastoral Korea follows the story of a young girl who watches her widowed mother deal with the social ostracism brought about by her single lifestyle, but eventually opens herself up to the possibility of love. However, due to nudity and sexual content it has become one of the most challenged novels on earth.