Middle school usually are pre-teens: 11-13. NOT someone I’d want to be walking two miles, depending on the area. And again, the high school library isn’t going to lend books to non-high school students, most likely.
However, I’d be happy to drive MY child to the local library. That’s what my parents did for me.
I don’t see what the big deal is. The book wasn’t banned. It was placed in a more age-appropriate place. Is the OP against that as a concept across the board? Are there no books he/she believes should be available to 16-year-olds and not 12-year-olds? Or is it the he/she objects to the judgement pertaining to this particular book?
What does that school district think of Anais Nin?
If a student has to ask for this book specifically, rather than just checking it out because it’s there on the shelf and looks interesting, they’re less likely to accidentally check out a book that’s too old for them, right?
You guys did notice this took place in Texas, didn’t you? Home of some of the most self-righteous, caterwauling, Bible-thumping, hypocritical, religious wing-nuts on the face of the planet. The place where just one of the above referenced jerks can decide that if he/she doesn’t like a particular thing then that thing is evil and no one should be allowed to have it. And it that jerk has the time and determination to make enough noise, they will get their way simply because other people get tired of listening to the jerk and won’t fight hard enough to shut the jerk up. I’ve completely re-thought my tentative decision to go back home; I am not about to retire in Texas. I didn’t belong there as a young person and I don’t belong there now.
This one. As noted, two panels declared the book age-appropriate for the middle school. How many panels are necessary?
I don’t disagree with the venom in the OP, but this is a little too much. Middle schoolers not only can walk two miles, but they should be walking this amount. Every day. In fact, everyone who isn’t crippled should. I mean, 11-13 year olds all over the world do it, so why not? That’s why we have an obesity, epidemic now. Everyone’s afraid to walk a couple of miles and experience the world outside of a car window.
The same overparenting that causes books to be banned has contributed to a generation of lazy, over-pampered, scairdy-cat kids who think they’re too fragile to WALK. I’m sick of it!
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I’m sick of reading about kids being abducted, tortured, and killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are places where I wouldn’t allow a kid of mine to walk one hundred yards, much less two miles. I don’t know if the OPs geographical area contains such neighborhoods but it wouldn’t surprise me if it does. I do think that she is in a better position to make that judgment than is someone who lives a considerable distance away.
I accidentally the n0v3l. Iz this b@d?
I agree that it’s my right to raise my children as I see fit. But I also think that the school has a responsibility to help me parent my kids, which means that I expect that they won’t offer them things at school that I wouldn’t offer them at home. That’s why I’d be the first to lobby against soda machines in school cafeterias.
Am I taking away someone else’s choice? I suppose, but I’m doing my best to raise kids with healthy eating habits and I take issue with schools sabotaging those efforts by offering up crappy alternatives, such as soda pop and potato chips, that will compete with food that is less appealing but ultimately a much better choice.
I put “TTYL” on the same category as junk food. Junk food is fine in small doses. But it’s not essential for development. “TTYL” doesn’t take on important social issues; it doesn’t exactly expand my child’s literary horizons. So who cares if it’s removed from the shelf? This isn’t “Tom Sawyer.” Better to use that space for another book, which may be less appealing but ultimately a better choice.
Sorry. I can’t muster up the outrage here.
I must admit I feel the same way. Considering the strained resources at so many schools, I actually question the wisdom of a school library even buying a book like that in the first place. But certainly, it’s the job of the school to determine what IS appropriate for each age group, and stock the library accordingly. Every book that isn’t on the shelves there isn’t necessarily a case of “book banning.”
I’m not touching your rant, but it is worth noting that for many people walking to the nearest library out of school just isn’t possible. Forget two miles–I grew up in buttfuck nowhere where the local public library was a twenty-minute drive from my house. Very few people actually live within reasonable walking distance, and there’s no sidewalks. My parents were willing to take me on occasion, but it didn’t happen that often simply because it was out of the way.
Kids like the book. I’ve seen numerous students of mine reading it, and usually kids who aren’t big readers. In fact, I’ve seen far more kids reading it than Tom Sawyer. My feeling is that any book that motivates kids to read is good. Maybe they have to start with the junk food books but eventually they’ll move on to more sophisticated material. Other one of my deeply held feelings is that more choice is better. A middle school library can’t be filled with just the most serious and worthy classics (as judged by whom?). It has to have room for other kinds of books, because a lot of kids are not interested in reading at all, so we have to entice them in with fun stuff first. So all these moralizing judgments about the quality of the book making its removal OK ring false to me, because it’s not about that.
I’m going to read TTYL as soon as I can and then I’ll be able to give an informed opinion on if it’s appropriate for 11-13 year olds. My gut feeling says it is, if it’s in our library. I wish I had some idea of what was supposedly so offensive.
Another point against the “walk to the high school and check the book out of THAT library” thing is hours of operation. Wouldn’t the HS be “open” at the same time as the middle school is? Wouldn’t that mean that the child would have to walk to the HS during school hours to take a book out of their library? So…how is that happening? The child can leave his school to walk to the HS during the school day to get a book from their library?
I don’t think so.
The purpose of a school library is to support the curriculum, period. How exactly it does that depends on the budget, the attitude of the principal and too many other factors to mention.
I’m not familiar with the book at issue in this case, but in general I would defend the right of the school library to buy any particular book as a way to get kids reading, and the right of the library to not buy any particular book as not supporting the curriculum (or being an appropriate book for a library but not the best usage of scarce resources for this library).
But mostly, whether or not this book is a good use of scarce library resources, it was on the shelf, and so a parennt objected, and I agree with those who are troubled by the feeling that the book was finally removed from the shelf as a way of making a particular squeaky wheel go away. What’s Ms. Squeaky Wheel going to try to remove next?
So, you’ve read it?
And I think your attitude exemplifies exactly the attitude from the other banned book thread. Who cares if a book is banned? It was a bad book anyway, blah blah blah.
Hmm, you know what? I think I have looked at TTYL–not sure I checked it out, but I think I looked at it on the shelf at the public library and thought about checking it out, before deciding that I didn’t want to read about more youthful angst in the form of instant messages.
At any rate, while it probably didn’t appeal to me, I’d be supportive of it being on the shelf at a middle school library in all likelihood.
I don’t know if I’d go that far. My kids love Anime, for instance, but I’m not sure I’d want that in the schools, especially since the genre runs the gamut from completely innocuous to violently pornographic. And though my girls loved the “Twilight” series, I would never insist that their school stock it.
I definitely agree that the schools ought to offer something more than classics, but I think a line does need to be drawn somewhere. That necessitates a healthy, ongoing, respectful debate. The parent in the OP objected to the book, which led to an inquiry and a decision to move the book to the HS. That sounds like a reasonable process to me. If other parents object to the ruling, then they should have their say, too. And so it goes.
Well, of course, but my point is that a line has to be drawn one way or another.
In general, I wouldn’t disagree with that. I haven’t read the book, so I have no idea what its value is.
I’m not saying I’m in favor of removing any book that one particular parent doesn’t like. What I’m saying is that a school isn’t necessarily obligated to provide any and all resources that a particular parent might want, either. They have to make decisions that they think is in the best interests for the student body in general. Moving one book to a library for older kids may be a perfectly legitimate decision to make.
The OP clarified that the libraries are about nine miles away from the OP’s house, and the kids can’t walk from one school to the other and back in time to catch the bus. There is also the fact that the 2 mile distance between schools makes it unlikely the kids could go from one to the other and back during the library’s hours of operation. As well, there is the cosideration that a walk of around eighty minutes to get a single library book is pretty hard to justify.
I don’t think the OP meant to say kids should never walk 2 miles.