The committee divided up the books and read them to prepare for a discussion. A single member of the community, who does not have children in our schools, challenged ten books. I recently served as a parent member of a book review committee for my child’s high school. New requirements indicate that a person challenging a book must read the book they are challenging, and they must also have a child in the school system. On the positive side, I learned some school districts in my state are revamping guidelines to challenge books. Systems exist to protect children, and librarians deserve more respect. There was also no way she could actually meet it.Īccording the article by Lee, Sekinger said that libraries already have VDOE guidelines to determine if books are age appropriate for school libraries. Over 7000 books! As an already overworked educator, my friend was saddened and frustrated by this requirement. Last spring, because of the rise in book challenges, her principal asked her to read and review all 7000+ titles in her library. As one who has drafted two young adult manuscripts, I can tell you romance is essential to many books for teens.Ī good friend serves as the librarian for one of our local middle schools. That would eliminate any book with romance. For example, in a n article Kaiana Lee wrote for the Capital News Service, the president of the Virginia Association of School Librarians, Nathan Sekinger, said the standards for sexually explicit content include sexual arousal or interest in dating. However, problems exist even with these guidelines. This approach, allowing opt outs for classroom materials, seems reasonable to me. She gave parents the option to have their students study a different story. Six years ago, when my son’s 8 th grade English teacher taught a unit on Flowers for Algernon, the teacher sent home a letter explaining that the book contained sexually explicit scenes. I’m shocked to say, my little school division was ahead of the curve on this. Because of that, a new system is in place to notify parents of about class materials and give them the option to choose alternative assignments for their children. Last year, a state senator introduced a bill which required the Virginia Department of Education to develop model policies regarding instructional material with sexually explicit content. So far in 2023, 1 in 4 librarians have reported being harassed What I’m experiencing in VirginiaĬhallenges to books are up in my home state of Virginia. This label is used carelessly these days, and it’s harming the lives of innocent people and chipping away at our freedoms. Please note, a pedophile is one who engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child. Another librarian was called a pedophile on social media. One was accosted by a parent in the school library without school administration’s knowledge. One quarter of respondents reported getting harassed either online or in person. Librarians who responded to the survey said the choose not to buy controversial materials because they don’t want trouble. Thirty percent of challenges in 2023 led to the removal of materials from libraries, up from 19% in 2022. The survey also exposes increasing tendencies toward self-censorship. Self-censorship: : the act or action of refraining from expressing something (such as a thought, point of view, or belief) that others could deem objectionable Merriam-Webster Forty-seven percent of documented challenges were for books in PUBLIC LIBRARIES, up from just 16% in the 2022 survey. Over 700 school librarians in the US responded to the survey, and according to the results, challenges aren’t just happening in school libraries. The School Library Journal’s 2023 Controversial Books Survey also reveals concerning trends. Such instances only occurred in six states in 2022 and in ZERO states in 2021. Instances of challenges to 100 or more titles at the same time was reported in 11 states between January and August 2023. In 20, nine out of ten books challenged were part of an effort to remove multiple books at once. The ALA is also seeing more challenges to multiple titles at once. That challenge number is up 20% from the same eight months in 2022. In just eight months, there were 695 attempts to censor library materials and 1915 challenges to unique titles. In September, 2023, the American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIA) released challenge numbers for January through August 2023. Except, much of the talk centers around banning and challenging books, and librarians are getting uncomfortable. This fall t-shirt was made for the Word Nerd! □Īcross the country, people are talking more about books, which should make this Word Nerd happy.
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