oh for f*ck's sake!

laurie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:50:01 -0500

This is ridiculous beyond words.

Can't you just see some moron, using the magnifiying glass to find the boobies?!

laurie
www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com

Boobies!

sassymonkey — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:57:21 -0500

Apparently multiple someones claimed to have found a topless sunbather among the many people when looking for Waldo.

See:
Oh really, ban this?

and

Where's Waldo? Not in libraries because he's been banned

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

that list is truly scary

laurie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:23:06 -0500

and what reason on earth could be given for challenging 'where's waldo'?!!!!

laurie
www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com

Banning Books in Schools: Part 3 - The Fallout and Conclusion

sassymonkey — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:18:39 -0500

See Part 1 about the initial notification of the ban and Part 2 in which the internet responds. For a review of the book that was banned please go here.

After Maureen Johnson spoke out against the proposed ban of her book The Bermudez Triangle and then the internet weighed in things got quiet for a few weeks. But when Johnson updated her readers in June she had a doozy of a post called The Big, Bad Bartlesville Update on June 8. The post gives a very good history of the process. The book was removed, and then it wasn't. Why? It seems that there is a public disclosure policy. The public must be informed of the challenge to a book before recommendations on what can happen to the book can be made. It is also revealed that the only person on the committee who stood up for the book, a librarian, was removed from a library committee. And then the bomb - librarian Susan Hunt, who reported the ban to Maureen Johnson, resigned after being pulled into a meeting about the banning.

I have taught for 33 years and have now gone out doing what I know was right. I continue to stand by my original statement to you, Maureen. The committee headed by Vernon voted to remove your book without having read it. I did not lack patience in the process in revealing this. I have no doubt that had we not made this information public that the book would have been immediately removed.

June 19th brought victory! Well...well sorta, kinda. The book was not removed to from the library! But it was removed to a special reserve shelf and students need to present a note providing parental consent in order to check out the book. Again it was now former librarian Susan Hunt who provided the update.

While it avoids "banning" the book, it restricts the book's availability. I would not have been happy to live under a rule that demanded a 'reserve shelf' for certain books, or that demanded that I keep track of which students had parental permission to read which books. It is just the kind of nightmare my early retirement avoided.

And it does sound like this could turn into a nightmare for whatever librarian fills in her shoes. One of the review committee's recommendations was the following:

Proactive communication with parents regarding materials in the library is important. An invitation to parents to visit the library should be extended each year. Listed media materials located on the website need to be communicated to parents. The committee would like to suggest the review of the district's current school library policy. Up to date revisions and procedures will be paramount in establishing a framework for future library media concerns.

Yes, they want to review the library and look for more books to put on that special reserve shelf or ban altogether. Doesn't that sound like a fun literary witch hunt? To put this in perspective let's look at a list of the most frequently challenged books in the US 1990-2005. I read several of those books not only in school but for English class in junior high and high school. We studied them. We had discussions about them. We hashed out the issues in them. From The Outsiders to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Cather in the Rye we reached beyond our classrooms, our towns and our experienced and learned about different lives and different people. Characters became our friends. Their fictional lives impacted our personal ones. There were still others that I found for myself in the school library. Judy Blume's Forever taught me what it was like to fall in love and fall out of love and still stay standing at the end. And yeah, it taught me about sex along the way too. Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series would end up coming up in several of my archaeology classes because after the author received criticism from the academic world about things in her first book she meticulously researched her subsequent books, even attending academic conferences to hear the latest news from the field. BlogHer's own Suzanne Reisman just wrote yesterday about Madeleine L'Engle's death and how she introduced young girls to feminism. I first read that book in a school sanctioned reading period, having picked the book off of the school's rolling library trolley.

Johnson's book was not banned but is not freely accessible to students. A librarian has lost her job. Another librarian was punished by losing their position on a committee. More books may soon be ending up on that shelf in the library beside The Bermudez Triangle.

As Banned Books Week looms ahead of us I encourage you all to pick up a challenged book and read it. You may not agree with what is presented in the book. You may find some of the material offensive. But maybe you'll gain some understanding as well. Understanding of someone who is different than you are. Understand of a place that is different from where you live. You may gain understanding of a time in which you will never live. Whatever your reaction discuss it. And read other people's reactions to the book. Engage in dialogue. We need more dialogue. And less books on "special" shelves.

See also:
Reading Rants - Fight Censorship!
2nd Gen Librarian - Word
Library Stories - Round Robin of Bermudez

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

BlogHer - Banning Books in Schools: Part 3 - The Fallout and Conclusion - Comments

oh for f*ck's sake!

Boobies!

that list is truly scary

Banning Books in Schools: Part 3 - The Fallout and Conclusion