I’ll be honest, I don’t know the process for buying books for school. I know when we had book fairs the librarian placed an order for books with the money we raised. She probably went from a list of grade level stuff. I remember some reference books and maybe a couple of books that were good sellers at the book fair.
I was on the committee for book challenges. it never happened while I was there. Drama was a book on our shelves, my kids weren’t graphic novel readers, so I know nothing about it. As far as sex in books in middle school, I think there was a hard line at anything described in detail, but it could be implied. John Green books were not allowed, so if you are familiar with them maybe you could understand the difference- I never read his books.
In talking with my D- high school library had more non fiction than fiction- that surprised me. We also just discovered in talking about the books that had sex- it was always non consensual. Or it had consequences or was negative in connotation- Canterbury Tales. It was not romantic, loving sex- or 50 Shades sex. These stories also took place in other countries. So she learned about non consensual sex and how awful that is and that she was glad she lived in America.
A serious question, why such deferral to a random school librarian? Is he/she of such unique skill in assessing books that we should all defer to their judgment? I was glancing at the Wikipedia list of best selling books of all time, and noted it includes the Hite report, the Happy Hooker memoir, the Fear of Flying, and Lolita. Is the public really comfortable with a book in schools glorifying the sexualization and rape of a little girl by her pedophile step-father? Why would we grant a relatively low-level school employee like a librarian the power to make that decision?
We read it in high school. I thought it was extremely creepy. Now that I’m older, I think it’s worse. Wonder why they chose it. It wasn’t on my kids book lists, ever. I think times change and so do the typical books. But librarians or the book buyers seem to have a large control over what is provided. Maybe that’s another thing that is changing.
Here is a clip from a Tennessee book burning which took place in February. https://wapo.st/3HxeWPV
Sticking with Tennessee . . . yesterday a lawmaker indicated that he would like to burn any inappropriate books in Tennessee school libraries.
The Republican-led Tennessee state House passed a bill Wednesday that would require public school librarians to submit to the state a list of book titles for approval, as a GOP lawmaker suggested burning books that are deemed inappropriate.
During a contentious debate on the bill in the House, state Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D) asked state Rep. Jerry Sexton (R) what he would do with the books that he and the state consider inappropriate for libraries.
, , ,
“I don’t have a clue, but I would burn them,” Sexton replied. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/27/tennessee-burning-banned-books/
Earlier this year Tennessee was in the news when a Tennessee county banned the use of Maus, the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel.
The McMinn County decision to ban “Maus” was widely interpreted as a rejection of or disregard for Holocaust education. The book, which portrays Jews as mice and Nazis as cats in recounting the author’s father’s imprisonment at Auschwitz, has been used in social studies classes across the country since the early 1990s, when it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/us/maus-banned-books-tennessee.html
Respectfully, please stop tagging me.
Did someone actually burn a book as it relates to “banned books in the sunshine state?” If not, then you definitely did not get my post. And your link to some crackpot pastor burning “witchcraft books” really?
There are actual places in the world, where books are not available, where you can go to jail for having them and where they are literally burned ( not someone saying they would like to burn them but where they actually do). That for simplification was and is my point. Have you read Farenheit 451? A good example, so is Gulag and so are others where people were actually in danger from books.
All these side notes about people who don’t like a particular book and want to do something about it, IMO and in the opinion of others isn’t the same thing. They don’t like a book and want it out of the classroom. They aren’t burning books in a pile.
BTW< I really like Maus. Such an impactful comic and storyline. And a great way to teach athe Holocaust, IMO.
I don’t think you actually meant this question for me, but yes, a “random” school librarian, who presumably has an advanced degree in library science, training specific to the age-group she/he serves and a bird’s eye view of what the kids actually read and respond to - that’s EXACTLY who I want choosing the books for the school library. I doubt too many of them are going to choose the Happy Hooker for their school library, but in the interest of full disclosure that’s one of the books that made the rounds in my middle school in the 70’s - along with Stephen King’s Carrie and Go Ask Alice - and we all made it out alive (I don’t actually remember if any of those were from the school library - they were more surreptitiously passed around as far as I remember - but I assume nowadays the kids just look at porn on their phones instead). As far as Lolita I believe I read that in HS or early college, on my own - it was not assigned in a class & it didn’t make much of an impression on me except to introduce me to Nabokov who is otherwise an amazing writer. If you don’t have professionals choosing books in your school libraries, and who are putting 50 shades of gray and The Happy Hooker on the shelves instead of Everywhere Babies, then I guess I’d ask why you’re not turning your sights on getting a qualified librarian into the library, rather than on trying to parse each book & decide which ones are worthy of banning. As a parent I had plenty of things to worry about - which books were in either the school or the public library available for borrow by the kids was never one of them.
I find the lack of civil discourse on this thread a bit disheartening. And I include in that the overuse of certain emoji as responses. And the overall behavior has not improved even after another mod put the thread in slow mode.
If anyone is keeping score, the thread has been put on slow mode 4 times, and we have received flag notices on 47 posts. So I think we all need to take a break from the thread for a few hours.
Yes-- as noted by others given that their professional expertise, I’d defer to a librarian anytime. I prefer their professional judgement to a group of parents with an ideological axe to grind.
Please review the degree requirements for a masters of library science. It is a challenging professional degree, but encompasses neither any review of the content of library materials nor any child development study.
So now I know how book challenges go in my school system. First through the school and then through the county school board. The parent went to the school themselves and searched for books. So far he has challenged 2 and been denied. The reason: the committee and school board found the book, “is not pervasively vulgar, educationally unsuitable, or inappropriate to age, maturity, or grade level of the students.” Now I know our standards as well.
I think that it is great that he went to the school and looked for books himself. The school board also said that it is not a part of the curriculum, so it’s a voluntary read. He wants every book in the library to be approved by parents.
This is where my problem starts. Which parents does he want to be involved? What happens when they disagree? The simple solution would be for him to tell his child not to read the books. Also, because it would probably be possible, have a block on her account so she can’t check it out. In high school, you are never taken to the library to check out books. It would take a lot of free will to go in there, seek out, and check out this book. I’m in favor of personal responsibility.
So as I have already described above, I think a lot of this comes down to a growing and in my opinion disturbing trend of sidelining people with expertise, I thought I would share a link to the always-marvelous Michael Lewis’s latest season of his “Against the Rules” podcast. The theme of the season is “experts.” I’m really enjoying it. Spotify
I agree, but based upon the degree requirements, can’t understand why anyone with a library degree (and thus clear expertise in the cataloging, archival, and retrieval of information and sets of information) would be considered an expert about the content of that information. That is not what the degree implies.
Our librarian got regular catalogs in letting her know what books were out there, describing them, their themes, grade levels they were appropriate for, any groups that recommended them, etc. She always consulted that when buying. They were catalogs designed for school librarians, so I seriously doubt she was the only one with that resource.
I doubt many parents receive it.
If a kid requested a book we didn’t have she’d also try to find it for them from another library and get it shipped to ours (free to the kid). If it was popular enough, she’d order one for our library.
The catalogs from book publishers like Scholastic? Those advertisements are available to anyone willing to get on their mailing list, or online. Sellers usually describe all their books in glowing terms, do they not.
School (and other) librarians have access to professional magazines and journals and go to trade conferences just like any other professional does. If they don’t, they are being under resourced (which is certainly possible). But librarians aren’t amassing a library collection using the Scholastic magazine that comes home in my kid’s backpack each month.
That is really the crux of the debate, isnt it? No one cares if you read any particular book, regardless of how controversial it is. Read, form book clubs, discuss, whatever, anything and everything. Most people are even happy to have public funds used for the acquisition of almost any book for the city or county public library. Whether school funds provided by taxpayers for schools should be used for additional purchases of certain books is the question
I know my middle school librarian only bought from Scholastic when we had a book fair . Unfortunately, I can’t remember who she told me she bought books from. I know our kids were asked to make suggestions. I don’t know how many of those were ever purchased. Teachers also made suggestions.
No, the one she showed me once was produced solely for librarians and had quite a bit more in them than just books. I don’t know if Scholastic was a thing at the high school level. I recall our kids getting their pamphlets about books when they were in elementary and middle school though.