The “Captain Underpants” series by Dave Pilkey took the top spot in the American Library Association’s annual list of most challenged books. The “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy received fewer complaints than the popular series about this superhero.
In an article last week in the “Bergen Record, ” several public and school librarian expressed surprise that this extremely popular series had received that dubious honor. Obviously, potty humor has a great attractive to readers of a certain age. Parents, reported on by these librarians, although not thrilled with the Captain Underpants obsession, have not asked to have it removed from their shelves. Many parents, on the contrary, are happy that their reluctant readers are reading.
Several librarians feel that the popularity of this series, especially with boys, reflects a lack of “quality options” for the elementary age male population.
Dave Pilkey was quoted as saying, “It’s pretty exciting to be on a list that frequently features Mark Twain, Harper Lee, and Maya Angelou.” He was worried that some parents will see the list and discourage their children from reading the books for themselves.He probably need not worry about that problem in this area because those librarians interviewed say that their greatest issue is having enough copies to meet the demand.
I checked our statistics for the series and the numbers are way up.