Bibliographical:

Books by Elizabeth D. Schafer are listed and described on the shopping site.

Cultural:

This American Library Association (ALA) press release lists and briefly discusses the ten most frequently challenged books in 2002. (A challenge is defined by the ALA as “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”)

How many books do you think have been banned since the invention of the printing press? The Banned Books Online page offers an extensive listing of books currently available on line which have been banned by governmental (including school) authorities in various countries at various times. It includes works originating long ago, such as The Canterbury Tales, The Bible, The Koran, The Merchant of Venice, as well as books from more modern times such as Ulysses and E for Ecstacy. It also includes extensive links to other resources on book banning and censorship.

Here's a site created in 1994 and currently maintained by the National Coalition Against Censorship. The File Room contains extensive archives of censorship actions both historical and current. Excellent search capabilities give the ability to look at censorship cases and activities from the ancient past to the present in all parts of the world.

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia site contains a timeline of events in the controversy surrounding the Harry Potter series.

To read an enthusiastic defense of Harry Potter on the website Kidspeak, an anticensorship site oriented toward children, click here.

Author Judy Blume weighs in with her opinion in this New York Times Op-Ed piece, “Is Harry Potter Evil?”

This informal and irreverent blog site looks at banned books and the reasons they are banned. It includes links to other sites devoted to the phenomenon.