Ok, to all of you saying similar things to this, then why wouldn’t checking up on what your own kid reads be the answer? Hell, my mother was a piss-poor parent and yet she was able to at least do that much. And amazingly, even if every objectionable, doesn’t-meet-up-to-lofty-standards book does get pulled from the actual shelves, kids are still pretty resourceful at ganking their older sibling’s stuff and passing it around for the naughty bits.
So you can rest assured that the mother who is not really doing her own job, but rather that of interfering in everyone else’s the easy way, has a child who has probably already read TTYL. Plus anything else they can get their hands on that’ll now be deemed “off limits” because it’s labeled as such.
I hate to tell you-for those saying, “Well, I wouldn’t want MY kid reading it!”-they’ll still get their hands on it. Friends whose parents let them read it will loan it them, they’ll hide it, etc. It happens. I used to sneak peeks at my mother’s romance novels and giggle over the “naughty parts” all the time. Most of the time, she’d just roll her eyes at me when I did so.
Of course, MY mother went to a Catholic school, and in eighth grade, brought Peyton’s Place to school. When her teacher attempted to take it way from her, telling her all the bad stuff that happened in it, my mother’s response was something along that line that-if it was so bad, then how did she know what happened, and why did she only seem to remember all the naughty parts? AND my thirteen-year-old mother told said teacher that she had a dirty mind. The teacher let my mother keep the book.
The only books I really weren’t allowed to read where Stephen King or V.C. Andrews until I was about 12, mostly because my mother didn’t want me reading anything really scary or morbid. Sex? Meh.
Seriously, people-your kids WILL get their hands on it. You’re better off letting them read it, and being open to discussing it with them. Besides, banning it only makes it “forbidden fruit.”
I totally support your right to not let your kid read a book where three girls giggle about wanting to grab Peter Dickerson’s penis. I’m not saying that your kid HAS to read the book. I have absolutely no problem with letting you make the best choices for your kids.
What I am asking is that you do my family the same courtesy. The book was put into the middle school library several years ago. When a parent had an objection, the book was looked at and evaluated and was deemed to be appropriate for middle schoolers. At that point, the parent in question decided that they still knew better what was right for every other child in that school. That, I have a problem with.
I also have a problem with the superintendent who caved in to the pressure.
That and it sounds perfectly middle school age-ish to me. By 7th grade, we were already reading V.C. Andrews. TTYL doesn’t sound any different. More graphic sexually, but probably not quite as morbid.
That someone believed that it was age inappropriate and asked that it be removed to another more appropriate venue.
She didn’t trump everyone else. She disagreed with the recommendation of the panel and appealed to a higher authority, in this case the superintendent. He trumped them all, as is the case in most school matters.
The method used to move it is questionable, but the article also said that fifth graders have access to the middle school library. So with a population of 5-8 graders, it makes me wonder why the librarian bought it (obviously just for the 8th graders).
The other thing is that school libraries are not public libraries. School libraries very rarely get have enough money to buy everything they need and a few things they’d like. They often rarely have enough to buy everything they need. Which is why school libraries should be extra picky and not buy something that is inappropriate for a large part of their population.
I went to borrow TTYL from our middle school library and, of course, it was checked out. So I can’t speak authoritatively on its content. I will say this: I doubt it’s inappropriate for 11-14 year olds, which is the age of the students at our school. I think the same conclusion was reached by all the appropriate committees in the OP’s district, but someone stamped her feet and got it removed. I think that’s weak on the part of the superintendent.
A couple of points: I don’t think some of you realize that the public school library is the only source of books for some kids. Sure, the OP could buy the book from Amazon, but some kids don’t have parents who can or would do that, nor take them to the public library or book store. These tend to be poor kids, and kids who aren’t read to at home. If TTYL gets a kid like that interested in reading, he should have access to that book.
I strongly disagree that popular books of dubious literary value, like Twilight and TTYL, shouldn’t be available in school libraries. These are the books that kids ask the librarian for, books that get them into the library and looking at books. They give teachers and librarians an inroad into talking to kids about books, and recommending other, perhaps more literary, books to them in the future, ala “You liked that, maybe next you might check out this?” And, for the record, I do think manga should be in school libraries, age appropriate ones of course. Whatever gets kids reading is all right by me.
Bottom line: look at what your kids read. If you don’t like it, don’t let them read it. But don’t stop 600+ other kids from reading it, esp. when it has been reviewed and deemed OK by a panel of other parents. That’s just ridiculously patronizing.
No, but it does point at that you can’t police the world, you can only police what happens with your own kid. So, when the book is taken away from the junior high library, how are you going to prevent wherever else the kid may read it from?
It’s just all ludicrous. Take care of your own kids and let everyone else do the same.
That is the point, I don’t care if a kid reads TTYL or The Joy of Gay Sex (a frequent topper of the “banned books list”).
What I’m saying is that the content seems more suited for high school kids (as the publisher states) and probably shouldn’t have been purchased in the first place.
I don’t envy school librarians, it’s why I don’t want to be one.
I am not exactly sure what the superintendent was trying to say about 5th graders going into middle school libraries. The original school in question is the one my 5th grader will be attending next year. At this time, she is not allowed to go to the middle school and check out a book from their library. She must have a middle school id card to check out a book from their library.
I teach at a very small rural school (Average graduating class is below 40 students). Rubystreak is right: the school media center is the only source of books for many of my students. And if this happened in my district, that book would be gone completely: the middle and high school is one building, with one pretty sadly stocked library.
Every new book that comes in never gets much time on the shelf. It gets checked out continuously by a long line of students desperate for something they haven’t read before. I’m very impressed with the amount of reading my students do, even if it is all “popcorn.”
Funny you should say that–that’s exactly my view. Except that I don’t pronounce “caution” so that it rhymes with “censorship”.
So what? I could start talking about shemale porn and that wouldn’t change a damn thing.
:rolleyes: You know damn well what I meant. In case you didn’t, though, I’ll spell it out for you: To the superintendant, one parent’s wish for censure trumped the recommendation of two panels, both of which included parents of other children at the school. My question is: why? You can appeal to authority and say “It doesn’t matter”, which is apparently true, but that’s not the point of the discussion here.
How can a parent check on what their kids read while the kids are at school? By having this available to 5th graders, you are saying that even if a parent doesn’t want their kid reading it, the kid still can.
First of all, abbeytxs already explained that the 5th graders can’t use the middle school library. Middle schoolers are 11-14 IME. Second, this is a long book (234 pages). There’s no way the kids could read it in one sitting. They’d have to check it out, and bring it home. At that point, the parents would look at it.
I loved books as a kid, for instance, but I’m not sure I’d want that in the schools, especially since the medium runs the gamut from completelys innocuous to violently pornographic.
Hee, I had to read that twice. I agree, NO books in the schools because each and every one of them might offend someone. No “Fox in Sox”, No “Cat in the Hat”, sounds like paganism to me. Some one animated those animals. No “Tom Sawyer” it has kids who defy adults. No “Huck Finn” it has the word nigger in it. And og forbid a book that has the word PENIS in it. If I were the QUEEN of the world I would ban the word PENIS from all books. Everyone must use the word Cock from now on. Oh NO now we have to ban chickens because they hang out with Cocks. No “Chicken Little”
