When looking at banned book lists over time, and ALA's list of most challenged books for 2009 in particular, one characteristic that most of them share is that they target young people as readers. Sometimes the books are straight up for children and sometimes they are coming of age stories. Efforts to pull books come from both the Right and the Left, both concerned about the values conveyed in the text.

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Many school districts have review boards to watch over what students are reading, and sometimes entire courses of study are marginalized (as Ethnic Studies was here in Arizona), however by a slim margin the Supreme Court determined that implicit in the freedom to express ideas is the freedom to receive ideas and so teachers and librarians can make books, even challenged ones, available to students.

Somtimes books are successfully removed from shelves by a review board, but when the review process doesn't satisfy parents or library patrons, they occassionally engage in their own form of civil disobedience – stealing. Books have been checked out and never returned or never checked out at all, simply removed from the shelves. To combat stealth censorship, librarians have been known to keep these often pinched books under lock and key. You can find them in catalogue searches, but you have to request permission to see them. In some cases special vaults are employed. Sometimes the books are caged.

These efforts to restrict information and access aren't part of any shared vision on the part of educators or teachers. There are ways to resist this pressure and even to make a case for teaching challenged texts. Bookmans supports all efforts to resist censorship.

* This frame from Tintin au Congo, a book requiring an appointment to view from the Brooklyn Public Library, portrays Africans as monkeys. Steven Spielberg's scheduled 2011 movie featuring Tintin will not use objectionable content in making his film.