While your daughter may have been courageous in taking action, personally I think she took the wrong approach. Getting a book removed from the curriculum is not a "median" solution in my opinion. It is still a "ban" – a limited one, yes, but a ban nonetheless. And it is a ban based on one person's personal opinions. Essentially your daughter is saying that her personal opinions should trump all further discussion of the issue in a classroom setting – she doesn't like the opinion represented in the book, therefore none of her classmates should have the opportunity to discuss the issue in class. In my opinion, a "median" approach would have been to raise one's concerns about the book with the teacher and/or administration of the school, and asked that they ensure that the book is not just presented uncritically and that there is time given for discussion of opposing opinions. Isn't that the point of school? To teach kids how to think about difficult issues, not just shelter them from ever having to consider anything that might challenge their existing beliefs?

THAT does NOT fall under the same category as banning books. THAT is exorcising the same right as the authors whom you disprove of.

(1) a school, to remove a book from its curriculum (required reading), or even from its school library; or

(2) a public library, to have a book removed from the library altogether, or to have the book moved to a different location in the library – not in the children's section, or behind the reference desk available upon request; or

(3) A bookstore (most often Christians pressuring a Christian bookstore), to not carry a controversial or "dangerous" book.

Usually these protests/requests/demands are denied. Sometimes they are successful, as in the case of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being removed from so many public school curricula (where it was a mainstay for over a century as one of the classics of American literature) that whereas it was once the 5th most challenged book of the 1990's, while still seen as controversial it is now not at the top of most lists of frequently challenged books because it's just not in that many schools' curricula any more due to so many schools responding to the pressure by removing it from their curriculum.

But it isn't a case of the government banning books and telling private citizens that they can't purchase them or read them in their own homes.

Also, numerous Judy Blume books (often objected to and banned), the Harry Potter Series, Lord of the Rings Series. Never liked Catcher in the Rye, but I have read it.

I doubt I will "ban" any books from my children. My parents never did. If they are interested, I will let them read it and then discuss it with them. I'll explain, as needed, and say, "Some people believe this. Others believe that. I believe xyz. What do you think?"

My favorite book on this 08-09 list is the one my wife is currently reading–Phillip Pullman's "The Golden Compass." This book, the first of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, is so strange I wonder why anyone, even a Catholic school, would bother banning it. I'm sure that most readers regard Pullman's portrayal of the church as a caricature at best.

I'm not actually sure I like the series–my tolerance for strangeness has its limits–but I "enjoyed" seeing it on the list.

Pretty impressive for a book more than a century old that was initially banned in many places upon its publication in 1885, albeit for altogether different reasons.