I’m the manager of a small branch of a large library system. I don’t have a children’s librarian on staff, but the children’s librarians at the main library choose the books for the collection. A parent has filed a formal complaint that my staff allowed her nine-year-old daughter to check out Deenie by Judy Blume. How should I handle this?

It sounds as if there are two issues: (1) A problem with your staff (2) A complaint against the book. Make sure that the mother understands that it’s never the role of the librarian to monitor what children read. Then invite the mother to file a book reconsideration form, which I assume is part of your library system’s policy. Deenie is appropriate for most nine-year-olds. The mother needs to tell her daughter if she doesn’t want her to read it. I do think it wise to ask the children’s librarians at the main library to conduct a workshop in children’s services for your staff. They may need reassurance about their roles.

A seventh-grade student brought his mother’s ereader to class on the last day of school. He passed it around so that students could read passages from Fifty Shades of Grey. It created an uproar and the teacher came to the library to ask my help. I really didn’t know what to do.

This is no different from my generation passing around dog-eared copies of Peyton Place. Don’t make a big deal out of the situation. In the future, advise the teacher to simply ask the student to focus on class work and continue reading the book when he gets home.

My friend’s son (an advanced eighth-grade student in the middle school where I’m a librarian) may take ninth-grade English for credit. The summer reading selection for ninth-graders in the school district is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. He is registered for freshman English in the fall, but she doesn’t want him to read the novel. I was her easiest target because she doesn’t know the English teacher. I didn’t know how to handle this.

Do you know for a fact that students weren’t given a reading choice? Many school districts allow students to make a summer reading selection from a list of books provided by English teachers. This accommodates various interests and maturity levels. If this isn’t the case, then the mother has a choice. She can elect to take her son out of the class and put him in regular eighth-grade English. If she insists that he stay in the class, then he needs to complete the requirement. It sounds as if she will listen to you.

I’m taking an online course in children’s services from a university that is located in another part of the country. I have an issue with some of the theories about public library services to children. In my public library system, children are welcome to use the entire library collection. The professor defines children as birth to 11 years old. This makes me feel that I have to defend the policy of my library system.

Children should have free and open access to books and materials. Most children will reject what they aren’t ready for, especially if they don’t feel the materials are forbidden. What about 12- and 14-year-olds who simply want to continue using the children’s room? Does this professor think that they should be banned because they grew up? Your library is on the right track.

Another elementary school in my district had several challenges last year. Since my school library has a number of parent volunteers, I thought it wise to provide them training in hopes of avoiding challenges in my school. What should I tell them?

Two main points: (1) Student privacy is a requirement (2) Leave reader guidance to you. I personally recommend that parent volunteers be used for more clerical types of jobs. If parents want to read aloud to students, then make the reading choice together. Never ask a parent to read aloud something they aren’t comfortable reading.

A children’s librarian in a small public library, I announced a monthlong storytelling festival for school-age children. A parent of a third grader complained that the program involves fairy tales. I’m worried that the library director will ask me to pull the program. What should I do?

One parent shouldn’t be allowed to dictate a program. I suggest that you try to reason with her about the value of fairy tales. If she insists that her daughter isn’t to take part, then that is her choice. Let the director know that fairy tales are a large part of the oral tradition, and that no one else has complained. It should be treated in the same way as a book challenge. A formal complaint process solves the issue most of the time.

I’m an elementary school librarian and have once again been hit with a challenge to the “Junie B. Jones” series. The specific complaint is “disorderly conduct” and the grammar in the books. I’m tired of the challenges. I fear that I’m about to cave.

Do not cave! The purpose of a library is to serve all students. This doesn’t mean that everything in the collection satisfies every child or every parent. The way to solve the problem isn’t to remove the books, but to help children see that the “disorderly conduct” and the “bad grammar” define the character of Junie B. Jones—and contribute to the humor. Turn the discussion into an English lesson by asking them to correct the grammar. Children read these books to be entertained and don’t necessarily emulate the character. Trust their intelligence.

Students in a sophomore English class in my school were asked to write an original short story. One student used a lot of profanity in his. The teacher thinks the language is inappropriate and is afraid that she may get in trouble with the principal. She wants to fail the student. I told her that would be a mistake. What should we do?

If she didn’t specify that students weren’t allowed to use profanity in their stories, then she doesn’t have ground to stand on. Please advise the teacher to judge and grade the story on its merit, and not on issues of language. Are the stories for publication, a contest, to be read aloud in class? If not, then why is she afraid that the principal will question the assignment? She will create a larger problem if she reprimands the student.

I had no problems withThe Hunger Games in my middle school library until the movie was released. A parent who hasn’t read the book took her son to see the movie and she was bothered by the content. She called me because she doesn’t think the book should be in a middle school library. She added that neither the movie nor the book disturb, her son, and that makes her nervous. Help!

Tell her that the book is appropriate for middle school students, and that it was selected for the library based on reviews. Share the reviews with her and ask her to consider reading the book. Encourage her to discuss it with her son and ask him to reflect on its powerful themes. Sometimes conversation solves a disagreement. She needs to understand that she can guide what her son reads, but she doesn’t have the right to guide what other children read. Let the complaint go through a formal process if the mother isn’t satisfied.

I have seen a recent push by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) to report any challenge to library materials. I’ve been afraid to let ALA know when there has been a challenge in my library. Why is reporting so important?

Don’t be afraid. The ALA OIF is there to help you. The information that is reported is kept confidential unless the person filing the complaint wishes for it to go public. ALA uses the data to help guide other libraries in the nation with similar cases. In addition, the data is used in determining the most challenged materials in a given year. It is especially helpful when the office knows the resolution to a case.

A committee in the Northville Public Schools district had met Friday, May 3, to discuss the request, brought by parent Gail Horalek, that the district’s seventh graders read an earlier edition of the popular diary written by a Jewish teen who hid with her family for two years in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Anne Frank was betrayed and died at age 15 in a concentration camp.

“Following a thoughtful, deliberative process, the committee reached a unanimous decision to continue use of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl—The Definitive Edition as an option within the seventh grade English language arts curriculum. The committee felt strongly that a decision to remove the use of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl—The Definitive Edition as a choice within this larger unit of study would effectively impose situational censorship by eliminating the opportunity for the deeper study afforded by this edition,” says Robert D.G. Behnke, assistant superintendent for instructional services at Northville Public Schools, in a prepared statement addressed to the school community, which he provided to School Library Journal.

Horalek, a resident of Northville, a bedroom community of Detroit, MI, says her daughter’s school should have clearly communicated the differences between the definitive edition and the expurgated version that many parents remember from their school days. “I’m saying it’s inappropriate for the middle school, and [district officials] are blindsiding the parents,” says Horalek.

First published in 1947, the diary has been translated into 67 languages, with more than 30 million copies sold, according to the Anne Frank Center in New York. The diary has attracted dozens of requests to ban it from inclusion in school libraries or curriculum since its 1952 publication in United States, says Barbara M. Jones, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Parents have objected to Frank’s directness about her sexual awakening, Jones says, or felt their children are too young to learn about the holocaust. Teachers value the diary as a tool to help young people understand history and the adolescent experiences and emotions they share with previous generations. “It’s not just about a war, but it’s also about a girl growing up,” Jones says. “The book is powerful, and it has been my experience that powerful books get censored.”

In November 2009, the definitive edition of Anne Frank’s diary was pulled from the school system in Culpeper County, VA, after one complaint about the sexual references. Culpeper schools switched to the expurgated version edited by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, a switch that parent Gail Horalek asked Northville schools to make in the city’s two middle schools.

Published in 1995 by Random House imprint Doubleday—and then in paperback by Random House imprint Bantam Books in 1997—the Definitive Edition restored passages omitted by Otto Frank, including unflattering descriptions of his wife, Anne’s mother, and others in hiding, and his daughter’s entries about her burgeoning sexuality, according to the foreword of the edition.

Among the additional material are two diary entries, written when Anne Frank was 14 years old, that Horalek considers too graphic for seventh grade. On Jan. 6, 1944, Frank reflects on puberty and her desire to kiss and touch a female friend. On March 24, 1944, Frank wonders whether her friend Peter has seen a woman nude and ponders how to describe her genitalia to him. These sections total about four pages in the 352-page book, but in total, all of the additional material represents 30 percent of the newer Definitive Edition.

Often challenges to books in schools focus on small sections outside of the context of the entire book, says ALA’s Jones. The Frank diary tells the story of a girl growing up in extraordinary circumstances and having thoughts similar to today’s adolescents, Jones says. “She’s concerned about what’s happening to her body and what is happening to her as a person,” Jones says.

Horalek’s daughter grew uncomfortable and went to her teacher and then mother, Horalek says. The school provided Horalek’s daughter with a different book. Troubled with the lack of notification to parents about the difference in editions of the diary and her daughter’s feelings that her teacher had minimized her concerns, Horalek asked the district to switch books.

Horalek clarifies that she doesn’t see the diary as pornography. Instead, she says, a number of students in her daughter’s class are distracted by Anne’s writings on her sexuality and the adolescents treat those pages like porn rather than appreciating the diary, Horalek says.

Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Horalek says she was initially excited that her daughter chose to read the diary. “I think Anne Frank is a person who everyone should know, not just because of the holocaust but because she truly was special,” Horalek says. “There is so much to be gained by reading her diary.”

The response to Horalek’s request to swap editions has ranged far and wide, with media outlets and their readers, including The Huffington Post, New York’s Daily News, Canada’s The Globe and Mail, and the UK’s The Guardian weighing in. The vast majority of commenters want to retain the Definitive Edition in Northville middle schools, including the Kids’ Right to Read Project, a joint effort of the National Coalition Against Censorship, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. The group sent a letter to the district formalizing its request.

Horalek’s complaint has constitutional implications because she is trying to control what other parents’ children read, says Acacia O’Connor, coordinator of the Kids’ Right to Read Project. The courts have ruled that parents can make decisions for their own children but not other people’s, she notes, adding, “The historical importance of this book would outweigh anything considered objectionable.”

The diary’s American publisher, Random House, declined to comment on the Michigan challenge, but Gina Centrello, president and publisher of Bantam Books, did sign the Kids’ Right to Read Project letter requesting that the district retain the Definitive Edition.

Requests to remove a book from a school can lead to additional challenges in other communities, O’Conner says. Often other challenges, regardless of merits or outcome, are used to justify the removal of a book from classrooms or school library shelves, she says, noting that teachers and school librarians work in an environment where parents and administrators are increasingly critical of educators’ work.

According to ALA’s Jones, school librarians and teachers frequently call ALA reporting that they will lose their jobs if they support keeping a controversial book.

“If you stand up to parents and administrators, you run a huge risk,” O’Conner says. “Every time there is a challenge, there is a chilling effect on teachers and librarians.”

Marta Murvosh, MLS, is a former newspaper reporter who works for a regional library system in the Pacific Northwest. Follow her on http://www.facebook.com/MartaMurvosh.

YFEP winners Alexis Opper, Naomi Clements, and Daniel Pritchard at Youth Voices Uncensored.

“Books have been written for centuries to preserve and exhibit new thought,” says filmmaker Daniel Pritchard in his short film Excluded. “Why would we ever want to get rid of that?” Pritchard—winner of the  National Coalition Against Censorship‘s Youth Free Expression Project People’s Choice Award—was on hand with other young filmmakers this Saturday at the New York Film Academy for Youth Voices Uncensored, a special screening for all the winning films in NCAC’s annual film contest.

In addition to the winning YFEP films, works directed and produced by young people from the Global Action Project, a social justice organization for young people, and Reel Works, a teen filmmaking mentorship program, were also shown at the event.

The Youth Free Expression Project, made possible by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, invites people ages 19 and younger to submit videos related to censorship. This year, participants were given the theme “You’re Reading What?!?” and asked to create films focusing on book banning.

YFEP winners are joined at the screening by Karim Alexander, a producer at Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.

Through films infused with arresting visual imagery, references to actual book challenges, and poignant personal accounts, the teens vigorously defend the right to read freely, and demonstrate a strong passion for freedom of speech.

First-place winner Eden Ames relies upon the contrast between black and white and color film to underscore the restrictive, limiting nature of censorship. Her film Waking depicts a bleak, grey environment comprised of blindfolded inhabitants. A young boy is scolded by his mother when he attempts to read, warning him that books could potentially confuse him, but by removing his blindfold and accessing a library, he soon discovers a new vibrant, colorful world. Acacia O’Conor of NCAC praises the film for its nuanced look at censorship. “It admits that a lot of the things we read confuse us,” she says. ”They’re difficult to swallow, these books that show us the ugliness of our lives sometimes, but they are so rewarding.”

The filmmakers also express concern for current and recent book challenges. In her film Banned, second-place winner Naomi Clements cites the recent challenging of Patricia Polacco’s In Our Mother’s House, which portrays a family with two mothers. School librarians in Davis County, Utah were forced to shelve the book behind their desks until full access was restored.

Clements employs simple yet powerful animated images—bookshelves being locked away, a child staring at a book hidden behind a desk—as she narrates her beliefs in her own and others’ right to read: “It is not the right of one parent or person to decide what everyone else can read. I do not want to live in a world dictated by the insecurities of others.”

Third-place winner Alexis Opper also references recent book challenges in her film You Do Not Speak for Me, but delves into her personal feelings on the issue as well. The film shows Opper visually rearranging her own favorite books that have been banned or challenged—such as Matilda, Just Ella, and Speak—as she describes the need to safeguard access to all titles. And she pleas to well-meaning adults seeking to remove seemingly disturbing material in an attempt to protect teens: “You do not make darkness disappear by covering it up. You don’t save us by taking away reality, and you don’t determine what helps and what hurts.”

Michael O’Neil, NCAC communications director, wrapped the screening by announcing the theme for the next 2013 contest: “Video Games in the Crosshairs.” Because video games are so often viewed as potentially dangerous to young people by parents, legislators, and educators, NCAC encourages young people to share their views on this subject that directly affects them.

O’Neil emphasizes the importance of giving young people the chance to voice their opinions. “What we really strive to do with this film contest,” he says, “is to give young people a chance to speak for themselves. There are so many adult authority figures who spend a lot of time speaking for kids…and we need more opportunities for young people to speak up for themselves.”

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.”