Sarah Palin Tried to Ban Books as Mayor

Not True!

This is another element is the smear campaign against Sarah Palin. This lie is making the rounds of left wing chat groups and apparently has been picked up and circulated by email far and wide.
Included in the list of a couple hundred books Sarah Palin supposedly tried to ban are these:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

There are also some Harry Potter books listed that had not even been published yet at the time she was major of Wasilla. The entire list of books is similar to a list of books that someone at sometime, somewhere has tried to have removed from library shelves or reading list.

As best as I can tell, here is the basis of this lie. Eight years ago the Wasilla library was considering a change in its book challenge policy. Apparently many library systems have a policy in place for dealing with challenges to their book selections. Sometimes citizens complain about the book selections in their library simply because they may want more children's books and fewer romance novels. At other times citizens may oppose a book selection because they find a book offensive for one reason or another.

From what I gather from reviewing the information on this issue, Palin was simply trying to understand the current policy that was in place. The librarian, who had opposed Palin’s election, apparently took umbrage at the newly elected Mayor’s line of inquiry. A non-issue was blown way out of proportion. There never was a list of books Palin tried to have removed from the library. Here is more on the issue: Library censorship inquiries 'Rhetorical'

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