It Happened. It Happened Yesterday.
All I could think was…This can’t be happening to me.
Then I thought lots of very indignatious and angry thoughts.
But let me go back to the beginning…
The WSJ article (“Darkness Too Visible”) that came out a few weeks ago, it ruffled my feathers. For those who didn’t read it, it was all about a journalist who didn’t take the time to fact check, basing a journalistic article off of an uninformed mother in Maryland rather than look to the world of bookish people who surely would have been more than happy to give informed commentary and statistics as to the world of books today. The author of this infamous article claimed that all YA Lit is either dark and heavy or paranormal or dark, heavy, and paranormal. God forbid that mother and the useless bookstore employee had looked at the end-cap of Sarah Dessen my store is currently displaying. They might have found a book that didn’t include vampires or suicide…and then where would the WSJ be? Without an article that’s for sure.
I watched the bookish outrage that followed this display of uninformed book bashing feeling slightly smug in the safety of my happy little library.
And then it happened to me. I had suggested the book You by Charles Benoit, among others, to my English Department as part of their summer reading. They were looking for a YA book to accompany A Separate Peace and And Then There Were None. You was the perfect fit. It combined themes of character development and growth framed in the style of suspense. Plus it was addictively good and short. Done.
But then one of the teachers started the book, and had concerns about it’s place in our school and it’s “sexuality”. Called in for backup I presented a variety of other summer reading lists that included the title, it’s starred reviews from the Big Three of publishing (Publisher’s Weekly, Horn Book Review, and School Library Journal), rave blog reviews, and finally Parent/Content Reviews that listed every occurrence of questionable language and topics. FYI they say a$$hole 6 times and there are 5 scenes with a sexual spin that are noted as being: “No contact, just a lot of innuendos.” Bottom Line: everyone agreed the book was appropriate for grades 8 and up…nothing questionable in it. While I had been surprised that the book had come under review from my school I felt like I gave everyone enough info to support the choice if the English department wished to still teach the book. Case closed.
Until Yesterday
Yesterday I received the stupefying call informing me that an administrator had reviewed the book and found it inappropriate. Knock me over with a feather. They were removing it from the list due to content.
I had just been censored…Censored!
This was something that happened to other Librarians, at other libraries, not to me. There are books out there that I would hesitate to use in a classroom. Some YA books that contain triggers, graphic scenes, too much sex or drugs. But these were not the type of book I suggested. You was not this type of book. I was blindsided. I finally have first-hand experience of a book being unfairly removed from curriculum because someone didn’t take the time to read or understand a book before removing it from a classroom. It could have been worse. The book remains in the library’s collection and you know I’m going to be BookTalking the heck out of it. Just a big bummer of a situation.
Sara O
thelibrarianreads 