Banned books & an interesting article

Inspired by the Smart Bitches entry dated June 17. I did some surfing & found lots of interesting facts about freedom of speech and banned books. Banned book week is 24 September to 1 October 2005. According to the ALA, the following books & authors were the top 10 banned for 2004:

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, author of the Alice series
Robert Cormier, author of The Chocolate War and We All Fall Down
Judy Blume, author of Blubber, Forever, and Deenie
Toni Morrison, author of The Bluest Eye, Beloved and Song of Solomon
Chris Lynch, author of Extreme Elvin and Iceman
Barbara Park, author of the Junie P. Jones series
Gary Paulsen, author of Nightjohn and The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer
Dav Pilkey, author of The Captain Underpants series
Maurice Sendak, author of In the Night Kitchen
Sonya Sones, author of What My Mother Doesn’t Know

Amnesty International has a page which lists prisoners of conscience jailed for writing, publishing or reading controversial or banned materials. The Jefferson Muzzles is an organization which tries to expose threats to freedom of speech in the US. The 2005 award winners were some doozies, only a few of which I'd heard of. Scroll down & discover what amazing things have happened this year.

Somehow found an article in the Mt. Holyoke Alumnae Review about a few famous romance writing alums. Also some thoughts, pro & con, about our favorite genre.