Conservative Group Calls for Boycott of Scholastic
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By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 11/11/2009
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a conservative organization dedicated to upholding and reaffirming marriage and family life, has called for a boycott of Scholastic following the company’s decision to include Lauren Myracle’s controversial Luv Ya Bunches (Abrams/Amulet, 2009) in its spring 2010 middle school book fairs.
SLJ recently reported that Scholastic reversed its decision to ban the novel from its book fairs and will sell a slightly sanitized version of the title. But the book still won’t be sold at elementary fairs—even though it specifically targets that age group.
Luv Ya Bunches is about four fifth graders who have little in common but bond over the fact that they’re all named for flowers. One of the girls has same-sex parents.
Last week, Laurie Higgins, IFI’s director, urged parents to stop their children from attending Scholastic book fairs “during or after school hours,” and asked them to call the Scholastic Books feedback line and to send emails to inform them “that as long as they are carrying books that affirm homosexuality as moral, you will not purchase books from them.”
Higgins also told parents "to notify your children's schools that because Luv Ya Bunches is listed in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue, the catalogue is not to be distributed to your child and that you will not be ordering any books from Scholastic Books."
Both IFI and Americans for Truth about Homosexuality say they’re distressed that the book is included in the company’s book club catalogue and is listed as a “Best Pick” for grades 3–5.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, told SLJ that “Scholastic enjoys a special relationship with schools, which permits the distribution of book club catalogues to students in schools. With that comes a responsibility to provide wholesome great resources.”
Higgins says she’s not sure the boycott will result in any change in action. “Whether or not this boycott results in positive change is ultimately less important than the fact that we take a stand against the promotion of harmful ideas to our children in public schools,” she says.
Parenting blogs, as well as those in the gay and lesbian blogosphere, protested when they learned from SLJ’s report that Scholastic had told Myracle it wouldn’t carry Luv Ya Bunches at its fairs after she refused to replace a homosexual couple with a heterosexual couple in her novel. Myracle did make changes to the book’s language, however, explaining that she was comfortable with the trade-off of toning down some language in exchange for making the book accessible to more readers.
Scholastic’s book club division said it would carry the altered version for sale in its catalog, but the book fair division refused, citing the lesbian parents of one of the main characters, Milla, as the reason.
Change.org, a site that advocates social change, helped collect 4,000 petitions protesting Scholastic’s request to change the same-sex parents and its decision to ban the book from fairs.
Soon after, Scholastic announced its decision to include the novel in middle school fairs.
In an earlier interview, Scholastic spokeswoman Kyle Good said there are always two sides to a controversy.
“There are a lot of people who are upset that [the book] is included, so there are two sides of that story,” she says.
