‘The Hunger Games’ Joins the Top 10 “Banned Books” List

It's 2012 and apparently people are still trying to ban books (and sadly, still succeeding). So much so that the American Library Association actually celebrates "Banned Books Week" to celebrate the First Amendment and to fight back against the banning of books. In their research on 2011, they found a surprising addition to their list of the most frequently banned books: Suzanne Collins' 'The Hunger Games' trilogy.

Coming in at #3 on the list, is the wildly popular 'Hunger Games' trilogy that just launched a wildly popular movie trilogy. 'The Hunger Games' joins such perennial favorites as 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Brave New World,' the latter of which was published 80 years ago.

What's perhaps most surprising about the addition of 'Hunger Games' to the banned books list is that the movie adaptation was rated PG-13, which would mean anyone 13 or over could watch the movie with an adult (and anyone younger than 13 could watch with parental supervision). So watching teens kill each other for sport is OK for a 13-year-old but reading about it is not?

The reasons most frequently given for attempting to ban 'The Hunger Games' trilogy were that it was violent, "sexually explicit," and "unsuited to its age group." Violent, sure, but there's nothing even approaching explicit - or even implicit - sexuality in the books.

Here's a full list of 2011's Banned Books and if inclusion is a predictor of box-office success, Hollywood might want to hop on the film adaptation of 'ttyl'.

• ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle 
• The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
• The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
• My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
• Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
• What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
• Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee