How can you tell the Hunger Games books are really popular?

How can you tell the Hunger Games books are really popular?

They are climbing the banned and challenged book list of YA literature quickly! The release of the first Hunger Games book has seen increasing mainstream media attention on this great book series and the books have cracked the top three banned and challenged books list put out by the ALA each year. Last year The Hunger Games came in at number five but this year the entire series hit number three in complaints from parents and educators for being "anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence."

Interestingly many of the complaints levelled against Suzanne Collins' series are not in fact about the books, according to Barbara Jones, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, but were actually related to the movie version:

There was complaining about the choice of actors for the film. You had people saying someone was dark-skinned in the book, but not in the film, or dark-skinned in the film and not in the book. In general, a lot more people were aware of the books and that led to more kinds of complaints.

The number one banned or challenged book for 2011 is list repeat YA series TTYL written by Lauren Myracle which has appeared on the list since first being published in 2004. The series follows a group of teenage girls and is written in the form of emails, texts, and IMs. It is interesting that, although the protagonists deal with some difficult but realistic issues, the books are not terribly graphic or controversial and some articles I read about the books posit that the reaction might have more to do with the texting language and slang than actual content.

Both TTYL and Hunger Games are in good company this year with many excellent books making the ALA list - might make a great summer reading 'to do' ;-)

1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group


2) The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence

4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint

7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit

8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit

9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit

10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Offensive language; racism