For the librarians on my friends list.

[rivka]

Person 1: We typically get our books from the library. I had never considered that some books may be banned from the American Library Association. I am sure that some of those books are extremely thought provoking reads. We are currently reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. I just happened to pick it up at a Yard Sale. What a great book. Our library will not carry that series, so I ordered the sequels from Amazon. I can see why it might be banned. It is sad and while I would not want my child to pick this up in the Children's section of the library and read it on their own, we are thoroughly enjoying reading it together.

Person 2: The ALA doesn't ban books-as a matter of fact it is strongly opposed to the banning of books. From their web site:

The ALA promotes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinions even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

They do however maintain lists of books that have been banned and challenged. You can check out their web site and search "banned books" or "challenged books".

Person 1: This is good to know. I just found it on the Banned Books List and assumed it was "banned". I had never come across this before so I had no idea how it worked.

This massive misconception would fall more on the side of pure entertainment to me if Person 1 wasn't homeschooling her kids.

Comments

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Oh, good grief.

It's not the lack of knowledge that's kind of appalling, of course, it's the lack of research skills. No one can know anything, but a teacher [self-appointed] who can't *find out* things is severely problematic.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I don't know how you can even view the list at the ALA site and not have an understanding of what the list is and means. That's just....

There is a degree of unawareness there that I can't really comprehend.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Just ... wow.

I wonder if she's actually checked whether it's in her library system or just jumped to a conclusion. Our library has 23 copies plus several in large print and several in audiobook, all filed as YA.

It is a very good thing that Person 1 is
(a) a library patron,
and
(b) active on some part of the internet that isn't en echo chamber.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It is also encouraging that she was perfectly willing to read a banned book with her kids, although disturbing that she seems to agree that it shouldn't be freely available in the library.

[ailbhe]

My local library files it in the "over 14s" section; perhaps she means she wouldn't want it in with "Guess How Much I Love You" and Enid Blyton?

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I was making the Sacred Sign of the Guppy over this.

The homeschooling aspect just puts icing on it.

[ailbhe]

Took me a while to work out what that meant, but I got it in the end. It's what I did too.

Goodness me.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

....

Wow. Just....

Wow. O.o

[jenett]

I boggle.

(Though I have heard people have that response to the name of Banned Books Week before: it comes up in library discussions with people considering changing the name periodically.)

I am also boggling at The Giver being a series. Which it isn't, of course. (And I'd boggle at a library that didn't have it, of reasonable size, because among other things 'buy the major award winners' is often part of the collection development policy.)

Though curiously, at [previous job], it and Farenheit 451 needed multiple replacements because people would not check them out and not bring them back: in that case, I'm pretty sure it was interest, not trying to remove them from the collection deliberately.)

[ailbhe]

http://www.loislowry.com/giver.html describes it as part of The Trilogy, so that bit isn't that surprising.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

How is a book with 2 sequels not part of a series?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The sequels are "Gathering Blue," and "The Messenger." I found "Gathering Blue" even more ham-handedly didactic than "The Giver," so I didn't bother with the 3rd book.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

This year there was a minor kerfluffle because the ALA had taken out an ad about Banned Books Week, and a bunch of people (with poor reading skills?) saw it, and assumed it meant these were books banned by the ALA, much as this person did. I think the ALA had to take out a follow-up ad explaining their position in full.

And my tiny library has a copy of The Giver. Of course. (The banned books display is one of my favorites to put together.)

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

I love The Giver, and Lois Lowry's work in general. (The first book I read of hers was A Summer To Die, which I still take out and read now and then.)

I liked Gathering Blue as a book also, both as a stand-alone and as part of the trilogy, though I've not yet read the third novel.

Boggle at the lack of clue, also.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome in the homeschooling world, I find (and my homeschooling friends find, much to their chagrin).

It seems odd that someone would parse "Banned Books Week" as "a week in which libraries celebrate the books they themselves banned" but on the other hand, life can be weird and we have always been at war with Eastasia.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The publicity for "Banned Books Week" is problematic in the way it conflates attempts to keep a book out of a public library, attempts to keep a book out of a school library or children's library, and attempts to keep a book out of particular classroom-teaching situation. I certainly understand the desire to expressing disapproval of all those different things as concisely as possible. Maybe sometimes "I don't want such an evil book in the public library where just anybody could read it and think Those People are ok," comes from similar motives as "I don't think it's appropriate for 8 year olds to have something so racist as part of their required summer reading." But the effects are smaller-scale. And I'm not convinced the motives are always the same.

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

And to think of all of the articles I've read inveighing against the ALA and how it insists on exposing our children to filth.

Ironically, The Giver won the Newbery Medal. I don't necessarily blame her for not knowing that it's given by the ALA, but I find it amusing (in a you have to laugh or cry sort of way) that she would think the ALA would ban a book that has its stamp of utmost approval right there on the cover.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*