Should be Banned

Schools Once Again Face Bind Over Censorship vs. Book Lists By Natalie DiBlasio U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and faced more than 50 other challenges this year, the American Library Association reports, and many more are expected this fall. "By far our busiest time is the early fall," says Angela Maycock of the association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "When students go back to school, we see a real upswing in complaints." There is intense debate over whether those challenges involve censorship or are just parents seeking age-appropriate reading material. "It is not a banning when some school decides to remove a book," says Dan Kleinman, who in 2004 started the website SafeLibraries.org. "They are just following their selection policy." Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says he believes the challenges are increasingly influenced by politics and the economy. "Districts are dependent on budgets, and politically motivated school boards try to determine what we read, what we think and what we teach," he says. The number of book challenges, usually initiated by parents, fluctuates yearly, says library association spokeswoman Jennifer Petersen. Reported challenges have declined from 513 in 2008 to 348 last year, but Petersen says there are many that her group never learns about. Last month, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer were removed from Republic High School in Republic, Mo. Ockler called the ban "extremely disheartening." The top reasons for challenges are sexually explicit content, offensive language and violence, the association says. "That's not what our kids should be reading and learning," says Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. Virginia's Albemarle County School District removed the Sherlock Holmes mystery A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle from a sixth-grade reading list after parents said it portrays Mormons in a negative light, says Matt Haas, executive director of county schools. In Channelview, Texas, The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby by George Beard, Harold Hutchins and Dav Pilkey was removed from grade schools after parents complained when their 6-year-old was suspended for calling a classmate "poo-poo head," Maycock says.