^ If Mark Twain was alive today, he would probably be appearing at libraries and in online chat rooms during Banned Books Week to discuss the fate of his own books. He certainly deserves recognition for the number of times his books have been challenged or banned in the past 116 years -- ever since Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885 and immediately banned by the Concord, Massachusetts, Public Library. In some ways, not much has changed since 1885. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ranked number five in the American Library Association's list of the 100 most challenged books of the 1990s. Twain's novels continue to be challenged and banned, but new reasons for opposing them have emerged through the years. Looking back over the debates about Twain's books during the past 112 years provides an interesting perspective on how American culture has changed, how Twain helped to change it, and why his books continue to raise difficult questions today.
