'Challenges our authority': School board in Florida bans book about book bans

[Bradskii]

You aren’t wrong. People have different interpretations, but you aren’t wrong.

It's a book for adults. The concepts, the levels of meanings, the subtlety, how it should be interpreted, not to mention the subjects I listed earlier...it's not a book for children. By any stretch of the imagination.

 

[RileyG]

It's a book for adults. The concepts, the levels of meanings, the subtlety, how it should be interpreted, not to mention the subjects I listed earlier...it's not a book for children. By any stretch of the imagination.

Yes. That’s right.

The New Testament is much more…age appropriate so to speak.

But most Churches, if not all, don’t read the “icky” parts of the Old Testament.

Just to be fair.

 

[A2SG]

Children spend more time at home - and have more free time to read there -

Then it's a good thing they can check books out of the school library to take home and read.

and if they are strapped for cash they could always go to their local public library.

Those are being targeted too.

The thing about having controversial books at the school library is that parents are not there to approve what is being read.

But they see what the kid is reading.

Whereas - if they bought the book themselves or checked it out from the local library - then they would be able to approve each book.

I'm not discouraging anyone from going to Barnes and Noble....we visit one (or some other local, independent bookstore) at least once a week. I'm simply saying that a library's job isn't to limit what's available to read. It's precisely the opposite.

What is, or isn't, appropriate is the reader's responsibility to determine, not the library's. And it's even less of the responsibility of a committed group of moralistic busybodies who need to mind their own business and get their noses out of everyone else's.

-- A2SG, especially like those bookstores that have a banned book table...there's some mighty good reading available there....

 

[Zaha Torte]

Parents aren't around 24/7.

Correct - which is why they trust that the schools would not have inappropriate or controversial materials.

What you might find some of them do is instruct their kids on what they can and cannot do. It's what we call trust.

Children may feel that anything they find in the public-school library is "safe".

A parent saying that a book should be removed from the school library is admitting that they have no control over their children. That they don't trust their children.

Children are still children - easily manipulated and impressionable - especially when they feel safe.

Personally speaking, and this is just my opinion, it doesn't reflect well on the relationship that parent has with their kids.

I don't value your opinion much - but if you had little children today - you would trust them to watch whatever they wanted on YouTube?

Just had them the remote and just walk away?

You can have a good bunch of obedient children - but if they feel that they are in a safe space - they will be comfortable consuming the content available there - not realizing that it could be inappropriate.

And censoring children from reading about censorship? My irony meter had a meltdown.

I wouldn't want my fourth-grade children to get involved in anything political like that personally.

There is no rush.

 

[Zaha Torte]

Then it's a good thing they can check books out of the school library to take home and read.


Those are being targeted too.


But they see what the kid is reading.


I'm not discouraging anyone from going to Barnes and Noble....we visit one (or some other local, independent bookstore) at least once a week. I'm simply saying that a library's job isn't to limit what's available to read. It's precisely the opposite.

What is, or isn't, appropriate is the reader's responsibility to determine, not the library's. And it's even less of the responsibility of a committed group of moralistic busybodies who need to mind their own business and get their noses out of everyone else's.

-- A2SG, especially like those bookstores that have a banned book table...there's some mighty good reading available there....

A child could check out a book at the public-school library - bring it home in their backpack - and read it in their room without the parents ever knowing that they have it.

Since no library can fit all the world's books - they are constantly determining which books should or should not be included in their limited space.

I consider it a waste to fill any of those spaces with books that contain graphic sex scenes and the like.

 

[A2SG]

A child could check out a book at the public-school library - bring it home in their backpack - and read it in their room without the parents ever knowing that they have it.

Sure. It happens. I even did that exact thing myself back in the day.

Since no library can fit all the world's books - they are constantly determining which books should or should not be included in their limited space.

Which is different from censoring books due to the moralistic values of certain busybodies who are more interested in promoting an agenda than anything else.

I consider it a waste to fill any of those spaces with books that contain graphic sex scenes and the like.

So don't check them out.

-- A2SG, other people have different sensibilities than you do, y'know.

 

[RileyG]

If anything, learning about “book banning” only reaffirms my LOVE for reading, and makes it SO IMPORTANT to learn not only about our own interests, but also those who disagree with us.

Before you jump to conclusions…try to understand the other persons point of view.

 

[Bradskii]

Correct - which is why they trust that the schools would not have inappropriate or controversial materials.

But give me a break here, you think a novel about censorship is inappropriate. And I'm assuming that children check the book out from school libraries and bring it home. I can't see them sitting in the library for hour after hour reading books. If your child brings home a book that you find inappropriate, then explain why to the kid and take it from him. Exactly like you'd stop him or her viewing inappropriate content online. But you are not in a position to dictate what other parents decide is appropriate.

...you would trust them to watch whatever they wanted on YouTube? Just had them the remote and just walk away?

I have grandkids. And they know what we deem inappropriate when they're round our place. But we can't watch them every second they're online. It's trust again. It starts at home.

I wouldn't want my fourth-grade children to get involved in anything political like that personally.

Then you explain to them why they can't read it. You tell them they can't. That you don't want them knowing about censorship. And then they'll start wondering why their friends have all read it and they're not allowed. Maybe the penny will drop at that point. Maybe you also should stop them reading any book that deals with irony.

There's a general acceptance in English speaking countries that Americans just don't get irony. Maybe they expurgated all references to it from libraries.

 

[Bradskii]

A child could check out a book at the public-school library - bring it home in their backpack - and read it in their room without the parents ever knowing that they have it.

But...hang on. You said the book in question should be banned from the school library but available in the public one. Now you are saying that's not going to work either.

 

[A2SG]

But...hang on. You said the book in question should be banned from the school library but available in the public one. Now you are saying that's not going to work either.

But wait...what if the kid buys the book in a bookstore! Another Loophole!

-- A2SG, no escaping the possibility of banned books being read.....

 

[Bradskii]

But wait...what if the kid buys the book in a bookstore! Another Loophole!

-- A2SG, no escaping the possibility of banned books being read.....

Time was when a parent had to have a serious talk with their kid when they found some (ahem) reading material under the mattress or hidden in the closet.

'Yes, it was very awkward. Mary was cleaning out some of his old clothes in his bedroom and found a copy of...Catcher In The Rye. She's devastated. I don't know what to do. I mean, we've been good parents. Where did we go so wrong!'

 

[A2SG]

Time was when a parent had to have a serious talk with their kid when they found some (ahem) reading material under the mattress or hidden in the closet.

'Yes, it was very awkward. Mary was cleaning out some of his old clothes in his bedroom and found a copy of...Catcher In The Rye. She's devastated. I don't know what to do. I mean, we've been good parents. Where did we go so wrong!'

How are kids today going to learn the stuff some people don't want them to learn if they can't read banned books? Like we did.

-- A2SG, you'd think keeping people from knowing stuff would be easy.....

 

[Bradskii]

But wait...what if the kid buys the book in a bookstore! Another Loophole!

-- A2SG, no escaping the possibility of banned books being read.....

We actually had an example of book banning in Sydney recently: The same-sex parenting book bans are just the latest chapter in Australia's long history of library censorship

'At Cumberland City Council in the western suburbs of Sydney, one man — Councillor Steve Christou — persuaded the council to ban books about same-sex parenting from the council's libraries.

The change was short-lived. People fought back. More than 40,000 signed a petition to lift the ban.

Only two weeks later, the council reversed its decision, voting decisively (13-2), following impassioned pleas by residents, and with many people protesting on the streets.'

People were aghast. We thought, well ok - this sort of junk happens in the US, but here? No way! I signed that petition myself. The state premier got involved and threatened that funding for council was under threat unless they came to their senses. And as the report says, they backtracked very quickly indeed.

 

[A2SG]

We actually had an example of book banning in Sydney recently: The same-sex parenting book bans are just the latest chapter in Australia's long history of library censorship

'At Cumberland City Council in the western suburbs of Sydney, one man — Councillor Steve Christou — persuaded the council to ban books about same-sex parenting from the council's libraries.

The change was short-lived. People fought back. More than 40,000 signed a petition to lift the ban.

Only two weeks later, the council reversed its decision, voting decisively (13-2), following impassioned pleas by residents, and with many people protesting on the streets.'

People were aghast. We thought, well ok - this sort of junk happens in the US, but here? No way! I signed that petition myself. The state premier got involved and threatened that funding for council was under threat unless they came to their senses. And as the report says, they backtracked very quickly indeed.

I love checking out the list of banned books....every now and then, I find one I haven't read yet.

-- A2SG, wish someone would try to ban my book....it might sell better.....

 

[BCP1928]

Correct - which is why they trust that the schools would not have inappropriate or controversial materials.

If the material is controversial then it is exactly the material that a library should have.

Children may feel that anything they find in the public-school library is "safe".

And if the school library is run by a properly trained librarian then it probably is.

 

[driewerf]

The article claimed that this book "talks about the books that they have banned".

Parents ultimately have the right to decide what their children can and can't read.

And that implies that the books are available. Which isn't the case.

 

[Pommer]

If they banned inappropriate books - wouldn't it make sense for them to ban another book that talks about those inappropriate books?

It certainly made sense to them, huh?

 

[BCP1928]

It certainly made sense to them, huh?

These kids are not only not supposed to be allowed to read inappropriate books, they're not even allowed to know that they exist.

 

[Pommer]

When I was in 8th grade we had to read 40 books for my English class.

I read Carrie, Misery, It, Christine, The Shining, Salem’s Lot among others all by Stephen King.

I even read 1984 by George Orwell when I was 13.

I don’t think my parents or English teacher really cared.

I devoured books one after another.

I LOVED reading, and still do.

Re-read one book per month that you’ve read in your youth, you’ll be amazed at what you missed the first time around!

 

[Pommer]

I wish I had more time for reading! It’s fun! Even nonfiction!

I like biographies, I shy away from most political nonfiction, though.