Banned Books Week's Top 10 Heroes Revealed

Sept. 22, 2013— -- intro: You can't keep a good book down.

That's the reason why booksellers, librarians, publishers, teachers and a huge community of avid readers around the world gather each year in the last week of September to champion suppressed literature and the freedom to seek and express ideas.

Banned Books Week was first launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries, according to the American Library Association (ALA). Since then, more than 11,300 books have been challenged in libraries or schools.

Even in 2012, the Office of Intellectual Freedom recorded 464 challenges, but the ALA estimates that up to 80 percent are never even reported.

Among the literary works highlighted in this year's Banned Book Week, held Sept. 22 to 28 in the U.S., a list of top 10 challenged titles were plucked out of a catalogue of submissions from readers or various media reports around the world.

See if you recognize any of the following heroes of this year's Banned Books fair:

quicklist: 1title: "Captain Underpants" (series) by Dav Pilkeytext: Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group

media: 20328966

quicklist: 2title: "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexietext: Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

media: 20329014

quicklist: 3title: "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Ashertext: Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group

media: 20329062

quicklist: 4title: "Fifty Shades of Grey" by E. L. Jamestext: Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicitmedia: 20329109

quicklist: 5title: "And Tango Makes Three" by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardsontext: Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age groupmedia: 20329163

quicklist: 6title: "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseinitext: Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit

media: 20329267

quicklist: 7title: "Looking for Alaska" by John Greentext: Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

media: 20329334

quicklist: 8title: "Scary Stories" (series) by Alvin Schwartztext: Reasons: Unsuited for age group, violence

media: 20329412

quicklist: 9title: "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Wallstext: Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

media: 20329459

quicklist: 10title: "Beloved" by Toni Morrisontext: Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence

media: 20329507