So aside from everything else, a person who does not attend the school, nor has an enrolled child, can get a book banned there?
George Orwell doesn’t approve of this message.
3d grade complaint
Well, you know, it wasn’t like one of those old-fashioned two-dimensional complaints.
Anyway, methinks context is lacking here. The book wasn’t “banned”; it was “removed from open shelves” and its access was “restricted”. I for one would like to know if students have much difficult in obtaining such access – heck, it could very well give the books the allure of the forbidden – and/or if many other books gain such distinction.
But to be clear, all of this was promulgated by a non-student non-student-guardian non-employee non-elected? Do you even have to live there to get something put on controlled availability?
Your challenge has been noted. And removed from the thoughtstream whilst its content is evaluated.
So, no.
The complainant was a parent of an elementary school child, who objected to it being readily available to their child.
The school board removed the graphic novel from the elementary school libraries, then put it on restricted access (parental permission only) at high schools.
(off to check when Banned Books Week is this year – September 25 - October 1. Thanks, ALA!)
Don’t count on the “restricted” reading list to be made widely, or easily, available.
This reminds me of a book report I did in (IIRC) 4th grade (I was in the states by then and, thinking about it, that seems the most likely scholastic year) - anyway, we were tasked with a report on a book out of the school library. Our school had apparently recently been visited by those who like to impose their ideology by adding/removing books and I found a wee book called The Complete Book of Devils and Demons which was mainly mainstream Christian propaganda about their devils and demons - but what I managed to work out of it, IIRC (again, it’s been a while) but it was along the lines of how Satan got the shaft and what a bully god was for doling out punishment both on a whim and inconsistently.
Got me a visit with the school administration, a school psychologist and more than one parent teacher conference. I distinctly remember tracing the cover with wax paper (the impalement cover) and placing that on black construction paper to make my cover. I was quite proud of it… right up until the cover was torn up in front of me by a teacher.
Oy. I’ve given up caring about a good section of this country. I used to think the secessionist movement was just stupid. Now, there’s a part of me that kind of hopes they are successful… Let them start a country that no one else in the world likes. With any luck, they will be isolationists, too.
/rant
Stephen King always suggests for students to go immediately to the local bookstore and get the restricted/censored book in question, as it must be pretty good if they don’t want you to read it.
But what happens when the interest drops off? Or who knows if the kids even find out about the hue and cry over the book at all? They’re probably not scouring the 'net for news, and I doubt the schools will go out of their way to publicize this. Restricted may not be banned, but if people can’t discover the book, it may as well be. And eventually circulation will be so limited that “hey, nobody reads this, we may as well get rid of it.”
[quote=“abides, post:14, topic:73822”]They’re probably not scouring the 'net for news[/quote]They aren’t? Are the youngins still finding stuff to read by randomly wandering through the stacks and poking at what looks nifty? I have no idea.
Regardless, the mere existence of some kind of “restricted” section ought to provoke some curiosity regarding its contents, even if stories of just how and why stuff got filed in there are lost to the ages. Especially if the knowledge that it contains comics somehow endures.
Man, wait until they find out what kind of language is written on the boy’s room walls. Kids are gonna have to hold it in or wear diapers lest they read about “the man from Nantucket” while doing a number two.
At the elementary age? Yes. They are looking at what looks interesting, or what their friends read. My sample size is small, but does include teachers at that level.
My understanding of restricted sections is that a kid can’t browse it in anyway. They have to know exactly what material they want from it, a have a good reason to get it out. Not just because they want to see what it’s like. They may even need to have that request okay’d by a teacher or parent. If something isn’t banned, but your likelihood of discovering it ever existed in the first place is nearly nil, and the process of getting access to it if you do discover it is difficult or maybe embarrassing, banning it is pretty much unnecessary.
This is sad.
Inevitable comment: bet they’re not going to ban the Bible, though.
Cuss words?
Incomplete deference to organized religion?
Acceptance of different kinds of people?
Normal human behaviour?
- what ghastly sin brought down the hammer?
What I don’t understand about cases like this is where the leverage comes from. Why would a school give a fuck whether parents like a book? I suspect that the relatively decentralized school system somehow makes them more vulnerable, butI still don’t quite get it.
You’re not taking into consideration the entire environment/culture these students are in. They go to school in a district where a book can be banned/restricted across multiple schools because one parent complained. What kind of library succumbs to this minimal pressure? What kind of school? This is simply one example of a much larger problem for all the students in that area.
In other words, they have to be the kind of students who know they CAN request information that makes their parents squidgy, and know that it is possible to find that sort of info at their school library. Is that the sort of education they’re getting there? Probably not.
