Sunday, September 29, 2024

Should Books Be Banned From School Libraries?

 A good answer from Quora.

There was also one people were oohing and ahhing over on FB locally, of a librarian  patiently explaining that books found there way into age-inappropriate sections because the publishers are trying to expand their markets, people. What do you expect? She was irritated.  To that I say "That's why we hire librarians."

Of course there are books on the margin, which could perhaps benefit the occasional eight-grader but is generally inappropriate for middle school and belongs in the high school, or the high school section of the public library. Having those discussions is appropriate. But there are people on both sides of this who are crusaders, who want to make sure there is nothing in the high school that discusses LGBT students in any way, versus those who want to make sure that the poor fourth-grader trans boy has books that make him feel supported and affirmed. (And how dare your forbid it, because this book won an award! Those books always win awards.)

As a practical matter, most problems can be solved by factoring in age-appropriateness. Political/social questions need to be treated as a different animal, because the personalities are often more important than the content.

2 comments:

  1. "*poor fourth-grader trans boy*"

    What is a "through" boy? No one explains what a "through" person is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't understand the question

    ReplyDelete