Much has been written about America's troubled teens, in particular endangered teenage girls. Works like Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia and many others have contributed to the general perception that contemporary young women are in a state of crisis. Parents, educators, social scientists and other concerned individuals worry that our nation's girls are losing their ambition, moral direction and self-esteem as they enter adolescence - which can then lead them to promiscuous sex, anorexia, drug abuse, and at the very least, declining math scores. In spite of evidence to the contrary in life and...

Focusing on the attempted and successful banning of young adult fiction from media centers and classrooms, this book treats the legal and experiential history of censorship in libraries and public schools. It also looks closely at young adult novels from the early 1970s until today that have been the subject of book challenges. The authors discussed include Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, Chris Crutcher, Jean Craighead George, M.E. Kerr, Mildred Taylor, and Sherman Alexie. This book offers parents, teachers and librarians arguments against censorship based on literary merit and societal benefit.