Corrupting America's Youth

This month's School Library Journal carries a great article by children's author Dan Gutman, entitled "How I Corrupted America's Youth," about angry letters from parents and dealing with attempts at censorship.

It begins with just such an angry letter from a dad who was incensed by the contents of Gutman's book Mr. Granite Is from Another Planet, from the "My Weird School" series.  The letter writer takes issue with the book's surly protagonist (""My name is A. J. and I hate school"), and declares that it "is poison for young minds, and I will do everything in my power to get these books off the shelf."  Some form of the word "depraved" appears in the short note no less than four times, and the apoplectic pop throws in "abomination" once for good measure.

I don't want to cavalierly dismiss parents' concerns, but intellectual freedom and freedom of information is an important principle in librarianship, and these freedoms extend to young people.  Too often, folks will attempt to decide what's appropriate not just for their own kids, but for the whole community.  Gutman's fellow author of children's books, Bruce Coville, puts it bluntly: "Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship."

Case in point: Orlando mother, Tina Harden.  After flipping through her daughter's library book It Girl (a spin-off from the popular Gossip Girl series) and seeing references to marijuana, Tina confiscated the offending material and hid it in her closet.  Refusing to return the books, she racked up an $85 fine and tried to hold the library hostage by demanding that, if returned, the novels would be made inaccessible to young people.  After deciding she had gotten enough attention, Harden acquiesced and gave them back.  Not before the library was flooded with plenty of sympathy donations to replace the stolen YA novels, though.

Some of our greatest works of literature have been challenged.  The Lorax has been challenged.  Heck, even the dictionary has been pulled from classroom shelves because of moral panic. 

The dictionary!  Corrupting America's youth, and improving their Scrabble game!