Laura, that list is fascinating to read. I remember when publishing a young adult novel several years ago, the editors forced me to remove and change all kinds of innocuous things based on their anticipation of the reaction of middle school librarians. Some of the changes seemed outrageous to me because I was drawing dialogue directly from conversations I'd overheard between my sister and her twelve-year-old friends. As a young writer, I was very frustrated that I had to consider two audiences--a real audience of adolescents that I thought I knew how to talk to, and an imagined audience of shadowy librarians and parental figures, apparently always making sure they controlled what books were available to children.

While I intend no disrespect of any kind to librarians, I do wonder who gets to decide who decides what is and is not appropriate reading material for children. If it's a question of the developmental pace of the children, that should be considered on an individual basis, anyway. It seems to me that children precocious enough to be interested in material they are not mature enough to handle will encounter those kinds of situations (things that might bewilder them) in actual life, as well.

While I can see that Goosebumps books might scare a second grader, the response that they "promote evil" seems really bizarre, and I wonder why whoever thinks this doesn't have to offer slightly more justification, like a definition of terms.

Anyway, I'm not really responding to anything you said. I just wanted to thank you for posting the link to the list of banned books, which was fascinating. I'm trying to think of a way to use it in class (and apparently working through unresolved issues I have with former publishers and their practices).