Challenge accepted! I have the Beloved audiobook on hold from my local library. I’ll give it a fair shake. (Seems to be a popular title.)
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I was tempted. It looks cute. If I had grandchildren, I surely would have!
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I just love this. In exchange, what book do you think I should read?
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I love to read and always have a book going. But at the same time I always have an audiobook playing any time I’m in my car, or whenever I go for a walk. I sometimes even listen to one as I clean the house or do laundry.
Right now I’m in a celebrity autobiography phase, many of them humorous. Before that I was listening to a funny private eye series. Before that, crime thrillers.
It’s a great way to “read” without having to sit down and concentrate and doesn’t take you away from other tasks or favorite pursuits.
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That’s very gracious, thank you! I can’t suggest anything, though, because I don’t read books. I read a lot of shorts from many sources on many topics. “iPhone / iPad research”, basically. Sports, politics, science, etc. But no fiction, and no lengthy in-depth non-fiction.
The Times has covered the “book ban” issue with an article today about Gender Queer, the most frequently challenged book ( actually, a graphic novel) this year. From the Times description, I have to wonder why any school librarians thought it was appropriate to purchase, but apparently some did. Graphic novels do seem particularly susceptible to challenge due to the visual drawings of the work, in this case, of male masturbation, and a heterosexual couple’s use of a sex toy.
In any event, the Brooklyn public library has offered a library card and free access to its ebooks to any teen in the US, so those interested can access it from that database, if they wish.
Interestingly, the Times reprints other images from the challenged book, but not the 2 examples it cites.
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The group leading the charge is, again, Moms For Liberty, and they are using the alleged explicitness of a few of the images as a pretext to push their obvious anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
Here’s a link the article
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RADICAL!!! SJW!!!
I really wish that they had that book when my kid was young.
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Please stick to the original topic.
Actually, pictures of masturbation and sex toys have nothing to do with either social justice or LGBTQ acceptance. It is quite possible to publish books with thoughtful and insightful prose and a comprehensive discussion of the topics which doesn’t include those pictures. Including these images is just an example of the extreme, and why parents doubt the judgment of the “experts” who included them. It is certainly possible to amass an outstanding collection of LGBTQ literature that does not include such outliers.
I do not care who calls out such books. I care that upon review by rational adults, they were considered inappropriate. The fact that the NYT felt it couldnt publish those images ( but chose others) suggests that paper’s editors agree. If they are inappropriate for a major newspaper, perhaps they are inappropriate in a school library as well.
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The majority of middle school and High school and even a lot of elementary school kids have a cell phone or laptop. Do these parents think that they can censor everything their kids see and hear.
I’m glad my kids went to school in an area where parents let the professionals do the job the district pays them for. Actions like this are also the reason I’m glad I live in a open minded state. I hope those of you who are for banning and censorship have an open mind where your children or grandchildren feel comfortable to be who they need to be without fear or judgement.
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Anyone know why sex is so feared for high schoolers when violence is not?
Why do they need to be shielded from the one and not the other?
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This is why local control of school boards remains a good thing.
As noted above, kids can access anything, including the entire world of porn and violence, on their laptops. Why on earth should schools feel they have to provide it, using school budgets?
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So the answer is just to ditch libraries altogether now since they can access “everything” elsewhere? I guess it would save money.
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No, the answer is to carefully allocate limited school library resources to a selection of materials where they will accomplish the most for the greatest number of students.
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Like with the individual books themselves, context matters. And looking at the targeted book lists and other activities of these groups, an undeniable pattern emerges. Targeting supposed “pornography” is the pretext. The real targets are topical.
Like “Two Dads” or “Baby’s Everywhere,” an autobiographical book about the struggles and experiences of a “gender queer” teen makes some parents uncomfortable. They don’t want LGBTQ+ issues normalized, and they most certainly don’t want those who live with those issues humanized or relatable. Same goes with with issues of race and books like Beloved. Further marginalize the already marginalized. Further dehumanize the already dehumanized. Bury discomforting topics, no matter the cost.
In other words, looking at who is pushing the bans tells us why they are pushing the bans.
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Looking at the content of the books tells us why they were challenged more than the identity of any challenger. I am certain that it would be easy to find parents of all genders, political persuasions, and sexual preferences who object to the images in some of these books.
Just because you do not like some of the challengers does not necessarily mean they are wrong in their challenge.
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Where do you draw the line? For example, should school libraries carry playboy magazines since the kids can find those same images on their phones? If the standard is whatever you can find on your phone should be in school libraries that’s a pretty low bar.
There use to be actual standards and discretion in what we, as a society, chose to expose our kids to at different ages. It’s the reason parents (well at least some parents) don’t swear in front of their kids or allow the kids to use bad language in the house. It’s the reason playboy magazines had brown wrappers in the grocery store and people didn’t put then out with Good Housekeeping and Architectural Digest on the coffee table and the movie industry implemented a ratings system for the movies. Have we abandoned PG, PG-13, R and so forth because our kids can access all of it and worse on their phones? Not to my knowledge. If an R rated movie should not be shown to kids under 17 why should a book with the same language, scenes and subject matter be available to or made required reading for those under 17? Make genderqueer or lawn boy (sex acts between 4th graders) into a movie and you’ll be hard pressed to even get an R rating but those books should definitely be in every school library?
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This is such a ridiculous comment and it is comments like this that are actually stopping any productive conversation. You seriously want to say that someone who doesn’t want graphic sexual pictures in the elementary schools doesn’t want LGBTQ+ issues normalized. That’s just insane.
We can all be supportive, accepting and inclusive without having the actual bedroom activities pictured in graphic or cartoon pictures.
You are losing people with this rhetoric and quite frankly you are harming any progression on the subject.
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