Today is the last day of Banned Books Week

Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010, as listed on the ALA website

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/21stcenturychallenged/2010/index.cfm

Boldface indicates books I've read 
Underlined marks books I had heard of before seeing this list

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
   Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
7. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
   Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
   Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit
10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence  

Based on the descriptions of these books I'm not too surprised that they were challenged.  Brave New World sort of flaggergasts me because I thought it was a modern/nouveau classic or something like that.  But I suppose if Huck Finn got reconsidered in light of its "racist language" I guess it makes sense that Huxley's text was challenged.  Nickel and Dimed surprises me because the content didn't seem so incindiary; this is a work of non-fiction and the author expresses political and religious viewpoints but it never came across to me as ban-worthy.  This makes me wonder: who exactly are these people who come together and make concerted efforts to prevent others from reading these supposedly damnable texts? Ironically enough, even Fahrenheit 451, a book about banning/burning books, was on the banned list.  Haven't people heard of the phrase "there's no such thing as bad publicity", and that challenging a book just ensure that it'll get more attention and readers before it is potentially off library bookshelves?