Yet Another Crusade Against Books - West Bend, Wisconsin Hello!

I just looked at the blog. What a bunch of right-wing bullshit.

I can think of one and only one reason to move a certain book in the library to make it less accessible to children: the likelihood that some junior doofus is going to cut out the pictures when nobody is looking or steal it outright. Before their building got so cramped that they had to rearrange for maximum use of the space, my public library used to keep the what's-happening-to-my-body books, adult sex manuals, and car repair manuals behind the checkout desk and the encyclopedias within direct line of sight of it. It seemed to cut down on the amount of vandalism and theft. It also meant that you had to have the guts to actually walk up and request a what's-happening-to-my-body book or have parents who weren't delusional about puberty, but no system is perfect.

I actually did have a brave little boy come up and ask for books on puberty several months ago. I was so proud of him, I just walked him over to the shelves like it was any other transaction. (Making a big deal out of it would have embarrassed the poor kid.)

I did, however, quietly point him out to all my coworkers so they could make sure to be extra nice to him.

Delcat wrote:

You know, I can really understand why they want to ban this one. That's a TERRIBLE diagram of the vagina. It doesn't even show the clitoris. Are we going to allow this misinformation to continue to poison our ficwriters' minds? Well? ARE WE?

No, no, it has some better diagrams. They're just not on that website. They probably figure that anatomical illustrations are even moar pornographic than cartoon people going at it.

Delcat wrote:

You know, I can really understand why they want to ban this one. That's a TERRIBLE diagram of the vagina. It doesn't even show the clitoris. Are we going to allow this misinformation to continue to poison our ficwriters' minds? Well? ARE WE?

Dude, are you insulting It's Perfectly Normal? 'Cause that's only, like, the best puberty book ever.

I should know - I went through about twenty at that age. I was determined to arm myself for the trials ahead.

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

Delcat wrote:

You know, I can really understand why they want to ban this one. That's a TERRIBLE diagram of the vagina. It doesn't even show the clitoris. Are we going to allow this misinformation to continue to poison our ficwriters' minds? Well? ARE WE?

Dude, are you insulting It's Perfectly Normal? 'Cause that's only, like, the best puberty book ever.

I should know - I went through about twenty at that age. I was determined to arm myself for the trials ahead.

I'll lay you good money it was a whole lot better than 'The Wonderful Story of How You Were Born,' a totally useless book published at some point in the early 1940s that my mother unloaded on every single one of her kids the minute we got old enough to start asking questions. I tried to unload it on my niece Jenni when her kids started asking questions; thank God she had better sense.

Lady Anne wrote:

I just looked at the blog. What a bunch of right-wing bullshit.

Please tell me that you're not surprised.

A story in pictures:
:red: :hair: :rant: :bang: :bitchslap:

That about sums it up. And it's about all I can say without repeatedly banging my head against my keyboard.

Jenny Islander wrote:

I can think of one and only one reason to move a certain book in the library to make it less accessible to children: the likelihood that some junior doofus is going to cut out the pictures when nobody is looking or steal it outright. Before their building got so cramped that they had to rearrange for maximum use of the space, my public library used to keep the what's-happening-to-my-body books, adult sex manuals, and car repair manuals behind the checkout desk and the encyclopedias within direct line of sight of it. It seemed to cut down on the amount of vandalism and theft. It also meant that you had to have the guts to actually walk up and request a what's-happening-to-my-body book or have parents who weren't delusional about puberty, but no system is perfect.

This. I've had to move books behind the desk because the little darlings decided to draw in them, cut them up, or sneak them out the door. Oddly enough, I've never had to put a book on puberty or sexuality behind the desk, but I did have to put the Guinness Book of Records, all the skateboarding books, A Child Called It, and the Twilight series out of the kids' reach.

Lady Anne wrote:

... but I did have to put the Guinness Book of Records, all the skateboarding books, A Child Called It, and the Twilight series out of the kids' reach.

If only you could have permanently kept SMeyer's crapola out of their reach...

:eng99:
In six years, I will have a Master's in Library Science. I will then become a masked vigilante called the Archivist, and run around hitting fundamentalists and self-appointed moral guardians with ironically appropriate titles.

Raziel the Wise wrote:

:eng99:
In six years, I will have a Master's in Library Science. I will then become a masked vigilante called the Archivist, and run around hitting fundamentalists and self-appointed moral guardians with ironically appropriate titles.

I wish you luck with that. Best I ever did was give Gulliver's Travels to a little girl who wanted "fantasy books with no magic" because magic was evil. An example she gave me was of reading Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, that she had to slam shut and throw away because someone was using a crystal ball, which was obviously satanic. :redangry:

myeerah wrote:

An example she gave me was of reading Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, that she had to slam shut and throw away because someone was using a crystal ball, which was obviously satanic. :redangry:

That...wasn't that like, the one book in that series without blatant religious content? They fought demons with the help of a cherub in The Wind in the Door, and Many Waters is a retelling of the story of Noah. Such a pity...they might have helped open her eyes to alternative interpretation of Christianity for her like they did for me. And taught her the words "farandolae" and "mitochondria", which are like the best words ever. For srs.

also the demons in Many Waters were so totally hot in retrospect

You know, I wonder sometimes why my parents never censored what we kids read. I remember my mom not letting me watch certain TV shows when I was young because she felt they were 'too violent' for me, but I don't recall her ever paying the slightest bit of attention to what I brought home from the library. Nor do I ever recall my dad decrying a book from the pulpit as being 'satanic' or 'evil.' Of course, this was the man who once said that people were far too willing to give Satan credit when bad things happened, since most people were perfectly capable of screwing up their own lives without any demonic intervention.

On the other hand, both of them were avid readers themselves, and we kids were raised on a steady diet of Dr. Seuss, A. A. Milne, Rudyard Kipling's 'Just So Stories and fairy tales (including the unexpergated version of the Brothers Grimm), so maybe they just trusted us to know the difference between fantasy and reality. I mean, I spent my teenage years immersed in sci-fi and fantasy literature, and I never took up sacrificing goats to the Great Old Ones. My brother Christopher had a brief flirtation with Satanism, but that was more an attempt to piss dad off than any real intention towards evil.

Delcat wrote:

myeerah wrote:

An example she gave me was of reading Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, that she had to slam shut and throw away because someone was using a crystal ball, which was obviously satanic. :redangry:

That...wasn't that like, the one book in that series without blatant religious content? They fought demons with the help of a cherub in The Wind in the Door, and Many Waters is a retelling of the story of Noah. Such a pity...they might have helped open her eyes to alternative interpretation of Christianity for her like they did for me. And taught her the words "farandolae" and "mitochondria", which are like the best words ever. For srs.

also the demons in Many Waters were so totally hot in retrospect

You don't need L'Engle to hear the word 'mitochondria'...they repeat it at least four times an episode on CSI.

Delcat wrote:

You know, I can really understand why they want to ban this one. That's a TERRIBLE diagram of the vagina. It doesn't even show the clitoris. Are we going to allow this misinformation to continue to poison our ficwriters' minds? Well? ARE WE?

I clicked over to the second page of that and thought to myself, regarding the first pic there "Didn't I see a pic of Harry and Ginny in that exact same pose?"

I surf Rule #34 entirely too much...

Yeah, you do.

Hey, now, we can't have the dictionary just lying out where kids can read it! They might read naughty words like "knockers" and "bed" or even (shudder) "penis"!
OK, sarcasm off now. (Fun Fact: In the Victorian Era, "leg" was considered a naughty word.)

Lady Anne wrote:

This. I've had to move books behind the desk because the little darlings decided to draw in them, cut them up, or sneak them out the door. Oddly enough, I've never had to put a book on puberty or sexuality behind the desk, but I did have to put the Guinness Book of Records, all the skateboarding books, A Child Called It, and the Twilight series out of the kids' reach.

Whatever happened to the Guinness Book of World Records? It used to be about all the cool stuff in nature and all the cool stuff people could do. Now, it's just about gross-out photos.

Delcat wrote:

You know, I can really understand why they want to ban this one. That's a TERRIBLE diagram of the vagina. It doesn't even show the clitoris. Are we going to allow this misinformation to continue to poison our ficwriters' minds? Well? ARE WE?

That "It's perfectly normal" looks like a brilliant book. I wish they'd had books like that in my school library, it would have stopped my fellow pupils from asking me all the time. When I was about 12, it was as if the only person in the class who'd read a 'growing up' book was me and it got old real fast.

While a terrible picture of ladybits, at least it shows where all the holes are and also shows a penis in both states. This is leaps and bounds better than anything they allowed up to see when I was a grade schooler.

Figures that there's a petition to get it out of the Fayetteville school. e____________e THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.