The Anniston Star, a newspaper in Alabama, has created a list of which books moms and dads are most likely to request to be banned in the state. Parents in Alabama, as well as other states, have the option fill out a form to request a book be removed from shelves.
After they make the request, a school library committee is in place to review each request and decide whether to take action or not, the Anniston Star explained.
Nine out of 132 school districts in Alabama have reported parental complaints about books in the last five years; 77 districts said there were no challenges, and 46 didn't respond.
According to Barbra Jones, director of the American Library Associaton's Office of Intellectual Freedom, only 20 percent of book challenges are reported, meaning the paper's findings may not be a strong represnetiative of actual book banning trends.
One parent requested to ban "The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth." In the book challenge, the parent claimed the material showed "explicit drawings of how to make love while pregnant" and "pornographic pictures that should not be viewed by children.
"That's good: you wouldn't want young people to have access to information about safe sexual practices," Alexander Nazaryan wrote for the Atlantic's website.
The top ten frequently challenged books are:
1. "The Adventures of Captain Underpants," by Dav Pilkey
2. "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," by Sherman Alexie
3. "Thirteen Reasons Why," by Jay Asher
4. "Fifty Shades of Grey," by E.L. James
5. "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson and Peter Pamell
6. "The Kite Runner," by Khaled Hosseini
7. "Looking for Alaska," by John Green
8. "Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark," by Alvin Schwartz
9. "The Glass Castle," by Jeannette Walls
10. "Beloved," by Toni Morrison
