The finer points may not be obvious to an 8-year-old. And I don’t think that the outrage about these books originally stemmed from the fact that they’re “inappropriate for the children’s section,” but rather that they’re sexist and inappropriate for anyone.
It’s all very well to split hairs and rely on “subtleties in context,” but when we’re getting down to the message resulting from our actions (what politicos would term “optics”), even the smartest third-graders might not readily grasp the implications of complaining about a book they think is wrong (as opposed to “poorly marketed” or mis-shelved) and seeing that complaint result in the book being made unavailable in that store. It’s way too easy to look at that as a positive outcome (“Yay, offensive books went away!”). It takes a bit more sophistication to see how the practice of removing books from availability (or even limiting that availability) can, under subjectively different circumstances, result in an intellectually chilling environment.
The finer points may not be obvious to an 8-year-old
Luckily, they won’t get to have any real authority until they’re no longer 8 years old, relying an an 8-year-old’s understanding of the situation.
Blockquote And I don’t think that the outrage about these books originally stemmed from the fact that they’re “inappropriate for the children’s section,”
Actually, I think that’s total inextricable from the conversation. I think a lot of people in this conversation* would have seen this a lot differently had this been a discussion about a book written for adults.
*well, people who WERE in this conversation, I think the room has all but cleared out
Nah, check out Ms Cooper’s blog post. Whereas the boys get a chapters called “How To Survive a Forest Fire” and “How To Avoid a Polar Bear Attack,” the girls get “How To Survive a Camping Trip” and “How To Survive a Fashion Disaster.” She shows a picture of the first page of the camping one, the first panel of which reads, “Camping may not always be a girl’s top choice of activity, but here’s how to make the best of a bad situation, and survive in style.”
Plus, they’re in comic form. They’re just fundamentally sexist.
No doubt some would. Others were just happy to see the sexism go away, which is understandable, but I hope a few of them may ask themselves if they’re genuinely comfortable with this result.
The censors are starting young now. 8 years old. She should look at Huck Finn now. I mean, I hear it uses a very offensive word to refer to African-Americans. What are you people waiting for? Let’s yank it from the bookstores.
This all goes to show that we are all in favor of freedom of speech just as long as we are in agreement with the speech in question.
