Celebrate Banned Books Week with the 10 most-challenged books

Every year kids go to school or the library and bring back books that make some parents raise their eyebrows. Such language! Boy wizards! Sexual situations! Underpants!

There are formal complaints lodged -- more than you might expect in 2014. The American Library Assn. keeps an annual tally, and rather than hide those books away, it brings their challenges out in the open.

This week is Banned Books Week, observed at libraries and bookstores nationwide. They celebrate books that long ago were the focus of legal battles over censorship, like “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H. Lawrence, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” as well as the most-banned and challenged book of the last year.

This year, Dav Pilkey makes the top 10, again, topping the list at No. 1. Never mind that his “Captain Underpants” series about two fourth graders and their silly superhero has sold tens of millions of copies -- it still makes parents and guardians crazy. Their official complaints include “offensive language,” “unsuited for age group,” and “violence.”

Other authors whose books are among those most frequently banned or challenged include bestselling YA author John Green and Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison.

At Los Angeles Public Library branches, activities include parties with mug-shot photo booths where teens (and others) can pose with their favorite banned books.

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