In what's becoming an annual showdown that's uncommon in the liberal Bay Area, the Fremont Unified School District board has rejected a book a teacher selected for the AP English supplemental reading list. Click here to read the news story.

The American Library Association compiles statistics on books that have been banned from or challenged in U.S. schools and public libraries. Find more information at the association's website.

Banned or challenged classics

Of the top 12 books on the Radcliffe Publishing Course's list Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, 11 have been the target of ban attempts. (No reports of such actions were received for No. 10, William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury.")

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Most banned/challenged books, 2000-2009

1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12. It's Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16. Forever, by Judy Blume
17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20. King and King, by Linda de Haan