In June 2009, two Leesburg, FL mothers went on television and petitioned to have Maureen Johnson’s YA novel The Bermudez Triangle removed from the YA section of the library. A Leesburg library advisory committee voted to keep the book (in addition to a book from the Gossip Girl series that was also challenged) on the YA shelves.
Author Johnson composed a video response to the censorship attempt. It includes a thank you to librarians for resisting censorship and fighting to provide teens with access to materials they want–and may even need.
(story via I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I Read?)
On the list
That excerpt sure makes me want to read it.
I have mixed feelings. It’s
I have mixed feelings. It’s true that public libraries have to serve a wide array of patrons and I do have a feeling if everything that offended someone was removed, there probably wouldn’t be many books left. I think it’s a little different with school libraries, depending on the age group, but even they can’t allow a great deal.
I do think that parents need to stop just dropping off kids and be more active about knowing what their kids are reading, instead of expecting the library to do it.
I do have to comment though that there does sometimes seem to be bias amongst the libraries themselves…the link is apparently a gay site. Libraries these days have a lot of pro-gay books, but seem reluctant to also add books from pro-traditonal marriage points of view or ex-gay points of view. Even the ones that claim to be from a religious point of view are often still biased toward the lifestyle. It also happens with origins books to a lesser extent. And no I’m not saying put them in the science section. But I know of a few libraries that could stand to add a few more books from a creation science view in the religion section.
They shouldn’t be so eager to keep some books on the shelf despite some people being offended, but then be horrified others might be offensive. Libraries need to be as without bias as they can. I get why some is necessary, most patrions probably wouldn’t want pro-racisim books, for example.