The report—the first in a Pew/Berkman series that’ll explore youth privacy issues—features information from interviews with focus groups that were conducted by Berkman’s Youth and Media team and a national phone survey of parents and their teens that examines the use of social networking sites.

The findings are based on a phone survey of 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12 to 17, conducted between July 26 and September 30, 2012. Interviews were done in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones. The research team also conducted 16 focus group interviews with roughly 120 students. The report is fully downloadable, and may also be searched online.

The book, In Our Mothers’ House (Philomel, 2009) by award-winning author Patricia Polacco, was relocated behind the desks of librarians in schools serving K-6 students in Utah’s Davis School District. The book is about three adopted children of differing ethnic backgrounds and their lesbian mothers.

Children in the district must present written parental permission to see the book, according to a 26-page complaint filed by the ACLU and the ACLU of Utah Foundation on November 13.

The Davis School District claims that the book violates Utah state laws banning support of homosexuality in instructional materials supplied by schools.

“[T]he District’s primary justification for removing the book from the shelves is that, by telling the story of children raised by same-sex parents, the book constitutes ‘advocacy of homosexuality,’ in purported violation of Utah’s sex-education laws,” according to the complaint.

The ACLU maintains that removing the book violates students’ first-amendment rights.

“The Supreme Court has been very clear that schools cannot remove books from the shelf simply because they disagree with their viewpoints,” Leslie Cooper, senior staff attorney at the ACLU LGBT Rights and AIDS Project, told SLJ. “This case is about students’ rights to books in the library.”

“This is not about instructional materials. It is a book on the library shelf,” Cooper said. “A book that depicts a family headed by a gay couple hardly advocates a gay family lifestyle.”

The ACLU is filing the proposed class-action suit on behalf of the two children of Davis School District mother Tina Weber, along with the other nearly 3,000 students in the district.

“I was shocked when I heard that a handful of parents had made a decision about whether everyone else’s kids could have access to this book,” Weber said, according to an ACLU press release. “Our job as parents is to make sure we teach our children about our values. We can do that without imposing our personal views on the rest of the school community.”

How the case evolved

The flap over the book started in January, when a kindergarten student at Utah’s Windridge Elementary School brought Polacco’s book home and the child’s parent objected to it. The parent filled out a form requesting that the book be removed from the library.

As recounted in a June SLJ article, the book was moved from the K-2 section to the 3-6 grade section following a January 27 meeting of the Windridge School Library Media Committee.

The parent, along with 25 others, then appealed to the District Library Media Committee, filling out complaint forms asking again that the book be removed. The group provided statements claiming that the book contains “propaganda, because it puts forth an idea, then makes it look attractive and normal” and that “the author is wanting us to accept homosexuality as a norm,” among other objections, according to the complaint.

On April 30, the District Library Media Committee voted to have the book put behind librarians’ desks in all district schools.

ACLU’s Cooper says, “The removal of the book was deferring to other parents’ decisions about what their children can read.”

According to a Salt Lake Tribune story published on June 1, school librarians were later being told to remove other books touching on gay and lesbian themes.

A web page on the Davis School District site states that “The Davis District Library Media Policies are undergoing review at this time.” A previous school library policy statement was recently removed from the site, according to the complaint.

Utah librarians respond

“It appeared to us that the Davis School District followed the procedures that they had in place,” said Shelly Ripplinger, president of the Utah Educational Library Media Association (UELMA). “As an organization, we support all school libraries having a selection policy and a reconsideration policy.”

“School libraries serve a different function than public libraries,” Ripplinger added. “Our purpose is to support the curriculum, so with our limited budget we have to focus on supporting the curriculum and leisure reading.”

Chris Williams, community relations director of the  Davis School District, was not available for comment at press time.

On November 14, the day after the lawsuit was filed, The Utah Library Association (ULA) posted a new  Statement on Intellectual Freedom on its website.

A video of parents reading Polacco’s book aloud at a Salt Lake City library appears on the ULA Intellectual Freedom Committee portion of the site. The video was created as part of the 2012 50 State Salute to Banned Books Week (September 30-October 6) organized by the American Library Association (ALA).

In Our Mothers’ House classifies as a banned book, said Wanda Mae Huffaker, ULA Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair. “Being placed behind the desk falls into the definition of being banned” because the book is “not accessible to everyone.”

“Few banned books stay banned,” Huffaker observed. “Most of the time librarians are able to get books back on the shelves. We librarians are good at what we do.”

Polacco, the author of more than 85 books for young people, explained in an October 5 article for the ACLU blog during Banned Books Week that she wrote In Our Mothers’ House after witnessing a fourth grade girl with lesbian parents and adopted siblings being told by an aide that “you don’t come from a real family.”

Laurie O’Neil, family outreach social worker at James M. Quinn Elementary School, at the school’s Mix It Up Day last year.

A Christian group’s protests have spurred some schools to pull their involvement from next week’s Mix it Up at Lunch Day—an 11-year-old program meant to reduce prejudice among students that’s sponsored by the Teaching Tolerance project, part of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

But the American Family Association (AFA) doesn’t see the program that way. Instead, the Christian association has launched a campaign encouraging families to keep their children home on October 30, describing the event as a means to “establish the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools…” The AFA did not return calls requesting comment.

Schools that have participated in Mix It Up at Lunch Day for a decade have reported that the event is a great way for all students to break down social barriers—and even make new friends.

Deerfield (MA) Elementary School, which is holding their event on Friday October 26, has sixth graders lead table discussions over three different lunch periods.

“The students will say, ‘I already know everyone at this table,’ yet that’s not where they normally sit,” says Jeanine Heil, Deerfield’s principal. “This has allowed them to get to know more people at the school.”

The Teaching Tolerance project encourages schools to run Mix It Up at Lunch  on October 30— allowing for students to mingle and meet kids they may not normally share their sandwich with on a regular school day. There are materials online, plus links to model schools, like Deerfield, including other ideas on how to mark the event.

About 2,755 schools are registered to participate this October, more than each of the last two years. However, Maureen Costello, Teaching Tolerance’s director, says that about 5,000 or more usually hold an event, but don’t officially sign up online. Because of the AFA’s protests this year, 250 schools asked to be unregistered—but then another 400 added their names to the official list, Costello said.

“Half [that unregistered] indicated they were doing so under duress and had every intention of doing the program on another day or under another name,” she says.

Eileen Hunter-Sweeney says her school hasn’t heard a peep about concerns about next week’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day at Hackberry Hill Elementary in Arvada, CO. Instead, the kids are excited about the chance to sit with new students, as they have every year since Teaching Tolerance launched the event.

“It’s an easy way to meet someone they want to sit with,” says Hunter-Sweeney, the school’s social worker. “They don’t have to have the nerve to walk across the cafeteria and meet someone new. They’re expected to.”

Students at the Mix It Up event last year.

They’re not necessarily expected to wear big purple hats at James M. Quinn Elementary School in Dartmouth, MA. But that’s what Laurie O’Neil, the school’s family outreach social worker will don at next Tuesday’s lunch, where teachers, students and staff are encouraged to mix up their clothing as well. “The kids love it,” says O’Neil.

At Lynn (MA) English High School, students are invited to two Mix It Up dinners each year—one in the spring and one in October, held earlier this week, where about 150 students paid $3 each, enjoyed a catered dinner of pasta and salad, played Pictionary, and were assigned tables by picking a random number.

“The goal is to work with kids within the school to improve school climate and make everyone feel welcome and accepted,” says Ginny Keenan, peer mediation and mentoring coordinator and Friends of Rachel Club advisor, which sponsors the event.

And that, ultimately, is the goal organizers hope to reach: students seeing each other for the individuals they are—and accepting them into the school community.

“We hope the schools use it as an approach to build a positive climate for students and respect for each other,” says Costello. “We don’t want students to relate to stereotypes but to each other.”

Ellen Hopkins

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) will honor award-winning authors Ellen Hopkins and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor next month for their fight to defend free speech.

Hopkins, who writes about addiction, teen prostitution, and other controversial issues in her “Crank” trilogy (S & S/Margaret K. McElderry Bks.), is no stranger to book banning. In January 2010, she and a handful of other YA authors were scheduled to attend the Humble ISD Libraries’ Teen Lit Festival in Texas, but Hopkins was uninvited when a middle school librarian voiced concern over the author “being in the vicinity of her students.”  In protest, five of the seven other festival authors—Melissa de la Cruz, Matt de la Peña, Pete Hautman, Tera Lynn Childs, and Brian Meehl—withdrew from the event.

Hopkins was also banned from speaking at Whittier Middle School in Norman, OK, in 2009, after a parent asked that her novel, Glass (S & S, 2007), a semiautobiographical account of her daughter’s battle with a crystal meth addiction, be pulled from all district middle school libraries—and that no student be allowed to hear Hopkins speak.

For Banned Books Week in September 2009, Hopkins created a “Manifesto” video, in which she recites an anticensorship poem that chides “you zealots and bigots and false patriots who live in fear of discourse.”

“We’re thrilled to honor Ellen as an author who is courageous for the kinds of stories she writes and her willingness to fight for young people’s right to read them,” says Joan Bertin, NCAC’s executive director.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Reynolds Naylor, a 1992 Newbery Award-winner for Shiloh, has published more than 25 books in the often-challenged “Alice” series, which deals with relationships, sex, friendships, life problems, and God—and landed on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books for several years, topping the list in 2003. Reynolds Naylor is also founder of the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, which annually rewards $5,000 to an author of children’s or young-adult fiction of literary merit to complete a work-in-progress.

NCAC has for years honored authors and journalists among defenders of free speech but began recognizing YA authors annually in 2009, when it highlighted the work of Judy Blume, who has served on NCAC’s board since 2000 and is vocal about her battles against censorship.

Lauren Myracle, a New York Times best-selling author of the “IM” series of books, which include ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r, was honored in 2010. Myracle ranked number one on ALA’s top 10 most frequently challenged books list in 2011 and 2009—and also made the list in 2008 and 2007. In 2011, NCAC honored Laurie Halse Anderson, author of the debut novel, Speak, about rape, and Wintergirls, which deals with eating disorders. Both books are often challenged in schools.

Hopkins, Reynolds Naylor, and Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, will be honored November 12 during NCAC’s annual Free Speech Matters ceremony in New York City.

NCAC’s Free Speech Matters celebration is the only annual event to recognize YA writers and children’s book publishers for their contributions to free expression. If you’d like to attend, sponsor, or donate to the event, there’s still time.

Lauren Myracle

freedom to read. We caught up by email with bestselling author Lauren Myracle, who ranked number one on the American Library Association’s top 10 most frequently challenged books list in 2011 and 2009—and who also made the list in 2008 and 2007.

What does it mean to top ALA’s list of most challenged books–not once–but twice?

Well, it means I get a little bit of attention for a few days. I like that. I like attention! It also reminds me to do my best to stay on the top of my game. If I’m going to be an advocate for intellectual freedom which I sure try to be—then I better keep a close eye on myself. Where do I fall short? What ideas am I uncomfortable with? How do I deal with those ideas and the people who express them? +shrugs+ It’s tough. I am still a total work in progress.

Are you proud? Sad? Mad?

PROUD, for sure. “Mad” went away a long time ago. (I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know. I’ve been on this list before.) “Sad”? Well…maybe a little, in the broad way that I am sad that we silly humans can’t get our acts together and sing in harmony. But I’m an eternal optimist. We’ll figure it out, and conversations about tough topics—like censorship—inevitably lead to growth.

This is your fourth time on the list in five years. Why’s it important that kids get to read books like yours?

Because they’re AWESOME. Can that be my answer? Okaaaay, fine. Because ideas don’t kill people. Guns do. Except maybe gun-totin’ mamas have a valid argument for strapping lady revolvers to their inner thighs. Only how will I know if I’m forbidden from reading the gun-totin’ mamas’ treatise: “How to Coordinate Your Pistol with Your Pumps”? Hmmm???? (Um. My books have nothing to do with guns. My brain just goes to weird places late at night…)

What is the most moving comment from a reader that you’ve received?

“I am a gay boy living in NC. If I hadn’t read yr book Shine (Amulet, 2011), I probably wldn’t be here today. Thx.”

Do book challenges have any effect on your writing?

Absolutely, and it’s a pain in the butt. I doubt myself all the time. I want to reach tween and teen readers, but to reach them, I often have to meet the approval of an adult parent/teacher/book buyer/etc. But I don’t care about the approval of those adults. Do I? What if what I write really *is* “wrong”? What if I try so hard to not censor myself that I go too far and fall over? What if I try so hard to not not censor myself that I teeter in my high-and-mighty heels and fall over in the other direction? WHAT IF I SUCK? It is a mind game, see? But for the record, I don’t wear heels. I am usually barefoot.

OK, an easy one. How do you feel about book banning and challenges?

Can my answer be “Awesome!” again? Kidding. I don’t feel awesome about book banning. I feel crappy about it. Censorship hurts readers (all readers) and hurts authors (especially those who have yet to develop a thick skin). As Chris Crutcher said, “When you ban a book, you ban a kid.” Uncool. On the plus side, the fact that we celebrate Banned Books Week every year *is* awesome, because it draws attention to the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power—and yes, the absolute and utter awesomeness—of literature.

Bill Moyers Joins ALA’s Banned Books Week Virtual Read Out.

As honorary co-chair of this year’s Banned Books Week, from September 30 to October 6, Moyers’s video, “The Bane of Banned Books,” talks about how he grew up in East Texas without any money for books, so he’d go to the small local library where he checked out his first books: Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and a primer on Greek and Roman mythology.

Years later, when he entered the library as a freshman at a state college, Moyers says he was overwhelmed.

“I looked down at row after row of books and periodicals and thought, ‘Wow! All this for me?’” says Moyers, adding that he even considered majoring in library science just to be close to all those books. “Which is one reason it pains me to think that in this modern age, some folks and communities across America are saying, ‘No, that book isn’t for you.’”

ALA’s Virtual Read Out is an advocacy campaign that highlights the danger of censoring books in schools and libraries, and provides an opportunity for readers to demonstrate their support for the First Amendment by reading from their favorite banned or challenged books.

Joining Moyers in this year’s Virtual Read-Out are frequently challenged authors Dori Hillstad Butler, Stephen Chbosky, Sara Paretsky, Carmen Tafolla, and others. More than 800 videos were uploaded during last year’s Banned Books Week, including posts from authors Jay Asher, Judy Blume, Chris Crutcher, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lauren Myracle.

Be sure to mark your calendars for another Banned Books Week event: Moyers will discuss book censorship and Banned Books Week, along with other topics, in a “Live Chat with Bill Moyers” on Monday, October 1 at 3 p.m. EST. Join the chat with your class by leaving comments and questions on the site or via Twitter @BillMoyers.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, an annual event sponsored by ALA, which recognizes the importance of the freedom to read. For more information about book challenges and bans in your area, or a listing of Banned Books Week events sponsored by libraries, bookstores and other groups across the county, visit the Banned Books Week website.

Corey Michael Dalton

30—writer and editor Corey Michael Dalton plans to mark Banned Books Week by camping out there to demonstrate the value of our freedom to read.

Dalton’s decision to spend 24/7 there until October 6—except for bathroom breaks—stems from the Vonnegut Library’s fight against Missouri’s Republic High School, which last year removed copies of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five from the library and relocated them to a place only accessible by parents.

After Republic High School’s move to restrict the book, the Vonnegut Library offered to send free copies to any Republic High School student who requested one. To date, the library has mailed 75 copies.

“We thought this would be perfect for Banned Books Week,” says Dalton, the editor of U.S. Kids Magazine’s Jack and Jill, Turtle and Humpty Dumpty. “The book is locked up, and I would be locked up in the front window. It’s a symbolic thing that this is how the book is now allowed to live in the free world.”

Launched in 1982, Banned Books Week typically takes place the last week of September and highlights the importance of intellectual freedom, while also reminding readers how many books are removed regularly from school libraries and classrooms across the country.

Slaughterhouse Five, an anti-war story of a World War II soldier who travels through time after being abducted by aliens, was one of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books from 2000 to 2012, according to the American Library Association (ALA), which along with the American Booksellers Association, the  American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and others, sponsor the event.

For those with the urge to check-up on Dalton, a webcam will be installed and viewable from the library’s main website, where he’ll also be blogging. Those who want to pop in and say hello will be able to catch some of the library’s other activities for the week, which will include an evening reading of banned books and Skype visits from authors Michael Dahle, Ben H, Winters, to filmmaker Michael Moore. While all the titles have yet to be decided, Julia Whitehead, the library’s executive director, promises “a wonderful passage from Slaughterhouse Five.”

But don’t expect Dalton to sit on his heels and read all week either. The editor isn’t taking vacation time for his public protest, and says he’ll be working on his magazines.

“They’re setting me up with a desk, laptop, and networking me into my computer at work,” he says. “The November/December issues are going to be on the wall, and staff is going to be bringing me pages to edit and approve that week.

Born in Indianapolis, IN, Vonnegut later moved away. But the library is located in his hometown. Since opening its doors in January 2011, it allows anyone to check out books—titles that are mostly classics and donated to the library.

Although the library isn’t city-funded, it offers WiFi and tours—all free to visitors who chose to visit the “laid-back” spot, Whitehead says. “We’re not going to hound people if they’re a few days late with their book. You just sign a notebook page and we take your contact information, and look at your driver’s license. We trust you’ll bring the book back, and we haven’t been burned.”