More vulgarity discovered at the Leesburg Public Library.

The two mothers who so disliked The Bermudez Triangle and the Gossip Girl series have found many, many more books to be concerned about.

Due to the uproar over titles like John Green's Looking for Alaska and Louise Rennison's Startled by His Furry Shorts, Garret Freymann-Weyr's My Heartbeat and Sonya Sones' One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, the city commissioners of Leesburg voted 4-1 to (if I'm understanding the article correctly) split the young adult collection into a "high school"  young adult collection and an-unnamed-but-again-I-assume "younger" young adult collection.

John Green = Not Pleased.

I think it's odd that this is all going on during Banned Books Week and yet the story doesn't seem to have made it into the more mainstream news -- especially when it seems that there are some who are calling for the books in question to not just be moved, but pulled from the library altogether:

But Art Ayris, executive pastor at First Baptist Church of Leesburg, and Fechtel contend that moving all the high-school books is overkill and doesn't address the problem.

"If they move all the books, the indecent ones are still in with the decent ones and that's not accomplishing anything," Fechtel said.

So MOVING the books in question is overkill, but REMOVING the books in question is not?  I guess not, because the books that would be removed are indecent, at least according to the standards of the people raising the challenge.  So obviously everyone else in town must have those same standards.

I think that's what is being suggested here. 

[A few minutes later: 

But then this article makes it all even more complicated:  It sounds like the group isn't asking for the books to be removed altogether, but for them to be marked with a "Mature Audiences" sticker.  While the library seems comfortable enough with the Two YA Sections Compromise, they are not comfortable with a "MA" section:  because a split by age range wouldn't pass judgment on the content, while a "MA" section would. 

Conversely, the group of challengers wants a "MA" section for exactly that reason (I think), so that everything they deem to be vulgar would be found in one place*, and they also want to create a committee which would, going forward, decide what books would be relegated to the "MA" section.  WHEW.  I think I have it straight now.]

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*Which, one assumes (judging by my father's stories about using his childhood church's LIST OF MOVIES GOOD CATHOLICS MUST NEVER, EVER WATCH as a list of recommended viewing), would quickly become THE MOST POPULAR SECTION EVER.

Comments

[Rachel]

I know, right? Putting stickers on the books and moving them into a specific section would make that the MOST POPULAR SECTION in the library! I'm guessing these people realize that they would incite a riot if they asked for these books to be REMOVED, so they're just asking that they be MOVED.
Very smooth.

[hope]

But an MA sticker on a book would make it easy for parents to make and keep a rule for their children without reading every single book they bring home. No MA stickers until you are 14, 15 . . . move out of my house. Then everybody would be happy. The parents can pretend that their kids don't read the books, and the kids can find them easily. But why MA? Mature isn't what the REALLY mean. Would they argue for an MA sticker on Night by Wiesel? Or Hamlet? Nooooo. Why not just write SEX on the label? That's what they really mean-- we don't want our kids to know anything about sex. So . . . I vote for labels. C'mon-- you put the little Sherlock sticker on mysteries, and the atom sticker on Science Fiction. Just THINK of the label for the SEX books! You could have a separate label for non heteronormative sex! Thus making it so much easier for the kids to find the books they really want to read. I'm liking this idea more and more all the time. Someone design me a sticker!

[ninjac]

Growing up my parents were very strict about what movies we saw and what tv we watched. But they didn't care what we read or listened to on the radio. I don't know what their reasoning was. The only thing this did was make us want to watch the PG & R movies and the violent tv shows all the more, and it made us more sneaky. When they went out of town we would rent all of the bad movies and watch them in marathons. Wait, maybe that was their plan. Instead of partying or typical teenage debachery we just sat at home watching Lethal Weapon and eating oreos. (we couldn't have junk food either)

[Jenny]

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops still does movie reviews where they say what movies nobody should watch. A lot of the movies they rate O, I don't want to see anyway, because they look silly. I want to rebel! But not at the price of having to sit through I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. :P

[Str4y]

1. People are idiots. Every time I begin to forget that or think I'm too harsh in my judgment, something like this happens and reminds me. And yeah...making something forbidden and taboo is an incredibly effective way to keep teenagers away from it.

2. Hope--I'm on board. This plan sounds both workable and awesome.

[Colleen]

One thing I'm wondering though is whether they will then try to restrict access to that MA section. That has not been mentioned but I can see it coming - also having people volunteer to monitor the section and who enters it. On the one hand, yes, kids would want to see what is in there but think about it - how brave do you have to be to walk over there? A lot of kids won't read books they want to (especially if they are GBLTQ and in that county, trust me - you are in the closet).

It's that throwing around of the word "indecent" that really scares me - it's right out of "Footloose" and the freaking ban on dancing.

[shirley]

Just to clear something up. There will be no MA stickers (what was really requested was a "WARNING: Mature Content" sticker). That was voted down 3-2. The item on the agenda was a compromise, similar to the one used in St. Louis County, to identify books written specifically for the high school audience (not judging content) and have those on shelves separate from books that were for Junior High or Middle School audience; or that crossed all those ages (something like Redwall by Jacques). All of this would still be Young Adult but an added label of High School would be applied. The books would then be on a shelf along the wall at the entrance to the Teen Room with other overflow items like magazines, manga and a/v.

[hope]

Colleen, yes, I think that is exactly the point, not so much of the section, but of the labels. The next step is to get the library to agree that only those over some age 14, 16, 25, may check out MA books. There might be some exception for those with parental permission, but I'm sure that would involve obscure forms in triplicate signed by the parent who must present three forms of picture ID and a certified birth certificate of the child in question in front of witnesses and stamped by a notary public. The section would function the same way, I guess. . . especially when it turns out to be BEHIND the desk of the librarian, which is probably how Fechtel would have it.

[Maddie]

Your post reminded me of a question I had. Do you know where to find a complete list of Banned Books?

[Eva Mitnick]

Woo baby, the 12-year-old me would be going straight to the High School shelf! And learning all sorts of interesting stuff and telling all my friends and even asking my mom awkward questions - and in general getting all this important stuff about Life and Sex and Dating and Drugs out in the open and discussed, rather than locked away in a book some people feel should that 12-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to read.
My two girls (now 15 and 18) were always allowed to read anything and to ask me any questions. And they may not talk to me about everything, but we've had some doozies of conversations (hoo! wish I could tell you some of them!). Yay "high school" books!