'Twilight' Cracks 'Challenged Books' List

(April 14) -- Forget best-seller lists and blockbuster film adaptations -- you know a book has really "made it" when it lands on the American Library Association's annual "challenged list," the books most complained about by parents and teachers for their allegedly envelope-pushing content.

J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" are perennials, along with the ever-popular "Harry Potter" books, which are cited for promoting witchcraft, according to complaints reported by the ALA. (There is no church at Harry's mystical school, Hogwarts.)

This year, there's a new challenged book on the shelf. Stephenie Meyer's wildly popular vampire romance series, "Twilight," makes its taboo debut at No. 5 on the ALA's Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009. Parents, teachers and librarians have reportedly complained to the ALA about the books' sexually explicit content and their "religious viewpoint." (Or, perhaps, the lack thereof, as folks in fictional Forks, Wash., tend to worship vampires and werewolves over more traditional deities.)

Although "Twilight" has been around since 2005, selling millions of copies in more than 50 countries, the series has only just cracked the challenged book list, perhaps because of the enormous popularity of its film adaptations, "Twilight" and "New Moon," which together have grossed approximately $500 million in domestic ticket sales.

"Movies always mean more readership," Barbara Jones, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told AOL News. "Maybe even more people are paying attention to 'Twilight' now and saying, 'Gee, what is really in these books?'"

"Twilight" fans, or "Twi-hards," might point out that the romantic relationship between Bella and her vampire paramour, Edward, is sexually innocent until quite late in their love story.

In a statement to AOL News, Little, Brown, which publishes the "Twilight" series, said it "fully supports everyone's right to choose what books to read. ... We are fortunate to live in a country that values freedom of expression, and in which we can offer a wide variety of reading choices to the public without imposing censorship."

The ALA, which Jones says "strongly supports the freedom to read," is just the messenger when it comes to the books challenged across the country in a given year. In 2009 the group recorded 460 challenges involving works that had prompted "formal, written complaints filed with a library or school [and] requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

No. 1 on the 2009 list is young-adult author Lauren Myracle's "TTYL" series, the first books to be written entirely in "instant messenger" format. The books were challenged for sexual content, nudity, offensive language and drugs, among other themes.

Myracle told AOL News she is "thrilled" to top the list and has come to see her books' inclusion on it as an honor.

"When I first hit the list three years ago, I was horrified. Over time, I've come to realize that the books that are getting challenged are the books that are impacting kids," she said. "Yes, some people get scared of things that make them uncomfortable, but if the world was never uncomfortable and it was as bland and boring as vanilla pudding, then people -- especially teens and 'tweens -- would never realize how rich and beautiful our world is."

Although the "Harry Potter" books dropped off the top 10 list of challenged books for 2009, the latest compilation includes classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird" (No. 4), "The Catcher in the Rye" (6) and "The Color Purple" (9), all challenged for sexually explicit content and/or offensive language.

"The classics stay on the list because they're classics," Jones said. "Parents of every generation worry that these books will make their kids go out and be nonconformists, and kids love them over time because of their interesting characters and stories."

"And Tango Makes Three," a children's book based on the true story of two male penguins who nurture an egg together at New York's Central Park Zoo, is No. 2 on the list, for complaints about homosexuality. It's a trend Jones said is growing as more mainstream books with homosexual themes emerge.

Jones said the ALA uses the challenged book list as a type of watch list, as challenged books often move on to the list of banned books, which are removed from circulation at the local school and public libraries where many families go for their reading material. The ALA reports 81 books were removed from schools and libraries last year, including "Brave New World" and "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"When a book is removed from the shelves, we believe that it does really impede the freedom to read," Jones said.

Even so, a spot on the challenged or banned book list can sometimes do wonders for a book's readership.

"In some cases, it makes the book become hugely popular," Jones said. "I'll get a call from a book group who wants to know which banned book they should read."