I, personally, think that the banning of books is a practice that has gotten far out of hand in America.
In some ways, I am for the removal of books from public libraries- within reason, that is. I would never want to see a copy of Gerald's Game lying in the kiddie corner of my local library, or Madonna's Sex anywhere in said library.
However. It is when the practice of banning books falls into the hands of the religious whackjobs, the Moral Majority members, the practitioners of "family values", that it truly gets out of hand. I was surprised to read a list of books that are most frequently banned put out by the American Library Association, and find that Daddy's Roommate is number 2 on the list, while the aforementioned Sex is only number 20.
Some of the other reasons for removal are similarly foolish. As mentioned in ApoxyButt's entry, a book on Zen Buddhism was removed because one could learn how to become a Buddhist from the book. Your point being...? It's not The Satanic Bible, for God's sack. If the book didn't have any graphic violence or extremely perverse sex scenes, then I see no problem with it being on my library's shelf. Not everyone is little Susie Judeo-Christian, y'know.
It only gets worse as one goes along. I read a second list with the top ten books banned from school systems, along with reasons why the books were banned. Of course, Harry Potter was leading, but something struck out that slapped me across the face. Katherine Patterson's Bridge to Terabithia, which I had read in 5th grade as part of my curriculum, was banned from school systems for "references to the occult and Satanism".
"The occult and Satanism", people. Apparently, those must have been some powerful occult references, because I've blocked them out of my memory. Oh, wait- it's because they never existed.
Children should have the right to read whatever it is that they want to read, within reason. The removal of books from shelves should be used logically, and not because some nut is afraid that Satan is just going to leap out of the pages of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and snatch their little Johnny away to Hell.