Originally Posted by Andrew H.

There are at least two levels of deception going on. The first is defining a book as "banned" if it is removed from a school library somewhere - leading to the ludicrous result that "Harry Potter," AFAIK the best selling book series in the US, is listed as "banned." That's just dishonest. Removing a book from one school library is not "banning" the book, particularly when it is displayed prominently for sale in pretty much every book store, grocery, or gas station that sells books.

The second issue, and to me the worst, is the conflation of "banned" with "challenged," particularly in the context of school libraries. While I don't think that any of the books on the most recent list I saw should be removed from school libraries, I think it is very important that parents have the right to challenge what is going on at their school. If my kid attended a middle school library that had a copy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or "The Turner Diaries," I would be the first one to request that those books be removed. The freedom to challenge acts our government takes is *just as important* as the first amendment, and stigmatizing people who have the temerity to question the judgment of a school librarian is not a good thing at all.