The Tuscaloosa County School Board has come to a decision on whether or not to ban the controversial young adult novel ‘Sandpiper’. The book, which revolves around themes of young sexuality, first came to the attention of the board when 10th grader Lysa Harding form Brockwood High School refused to return it. Harding stated that graphic references to oral sex make it inappropriate for a school library.

Harding’s Grandmother followed up with a formal complaint to the school who chose to allow the book to remain on shelves. After three months of deliberation the County Board has made its final decision to let the book stand. Their decision was made with vocal reluctance, citing that legal counsel determined that recent Supreme Court rulings have stated that the first amendment rights of youth can be affected by the removal of books from school libraries.

According to the American Library Association this is the first challenge which has brought against ‘Sandpiper’.

Public response has been strong for the book to remain. Copies of the book have been donated to the library and both individuals and organizations have offered to pay the late fee on the copy held by Harding.

The Board is now in the process of implementing more stringent screening procedures to ensure that books which contains material they deem to be vulgar, offensive, or inappropriate in nature will never reach their shelves in the first place.

Hello faithful readers. As you may have noticed, the site was in various states of disarray for the last month. This was due to a hosting issue that has now been resolved. The site has now been restored, save for the original publish dates of the articles in our RSS feed.

We will continue to bring you the latest news about censorship in writing and will hopefully have the first episode of the Freedom Readers podcast in early 2008.

Keep those pages turning!

-Michael Martinez-Mann

Cyndi Treiber, a military om, has been protesting with other parents against a book that is part of the optional 2nd and 3rd grade reading program at the Magruder Elementary School library in York County, VA.  The disapproval stems from a portion of the book, addressing war, soldiers, and military casualties. Magruder argues that 42% of the district is made up of military families and presenting material about war to the children of soldiers is inappropriate.

Treiber is now making her third appeal to the district since march. In her first two attempts to ban the volume, the district examined the book with the help of committee members associated with military. After careful consideration and addressing Treiber’s issues, the committee found the book appropriate for children.

The library approval committee, who also has three members with military family, also took no issue with the books when it was first considered for inclusion in the library. Treiber has stated that despite these setbacks she will not back down until the book has been removed. The board must respond to Treibers latest appeal in the next forty-two business days.

After an intense outrcry from inmates, members of congress and religious groups the Bureu of Prisons repealed it’s decision to remove all but 150 ‘acceptable’ religious texts from the nations prisons. All religious materials that have been removed will be returned and most texts that were to be removed will remain in circulation.

The exception will be texts that incite violence or encourage radicalization which was the initial intention of the Chapel Library Project. The initiative was launched after  a 2004 Department of Justice report linking ‘dangerous’ religious texts to inmate violence. Critics are now waiting to see if the already removed materials will be returned in manner that complies to the Bureaus promises.

The most challenged book in school libraries this last year did not include violence, language or adult situations. It included penguins. “And Tango Makes Three” is the story of two male penguins who help a penguin couple who is having trouble incubating their own eggs.

The book is based on a true story, but this hasn’t stopped library patrons from calling for the books removal. The complaint apparently comes from the two male penguins having a perceived homosexual orientation.

Responses to the complaints have ranged from standing by the book, to relocating the book to the non-fiction section, to one school in North Carolina that pulled the book from library shelves though later returned it after protests from the community and the media.

The board of the Jackson-George Regional Library System which has been deliberating the removal of the book “Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch” has come to a decision. The board voted to keep the book on library shelves saying that “If we order a book, we feel like it should be made available to the public.” The decision to keep the volume was not unanimous. The hold out was David Ogborn who went on the record equating the decision to running an adult bookstore.

While this book will be making it’s  way back on to the stacks this incident has brought about a policy decision which may block others. Until now the library ordered every book on the New York Times bestseller list of which this was one. It will now be up to individual libraries to decide which books from the list are appropriate for their patrons.

Project Censored, a media watchdog group, has released its list of the top 25 most censored stories in the US from 2006-2007. Among them are the death of habeas corpus, the moves made towards martial law, massacres in Haiti, and genetic transmission of toxic exposures to name a few.

For the full list and details you can visit the project censored website at http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2008/index.htm

Young investigative reporter and Remapo High School student Andrew Gross thought he had a real scoop. After tracking down the parties involved and gathering background on his highshool’s drug culture, Gross wrote a hard hitting story covering the largest drug bust in his school’s recent history. When it came time to go to print he found his hard work was being blocked from publication.

Though Gross had performed his job in a professional and appropriate manner, district superintendent Paul Saxton pulled the article citing fears that releasing details of the event would damage the suspects chances at a fair trial, though the names of the students were never used.

Previous court rulings have upheld that schools have the right to monitor their publications, but the rulings were in instances where the material was categorically offensive or opened the school up to liability. Neither was the case in this instance, which Gross pointed out to school administrators.

Administrators agreed to let Gross run the story only if he removed all information about the incident which had been given freely and on the record by school officials or wait for the investigation and subsequent trials to conclude.

An elementary school in the southwest part of Chicago is being applauded by the ALA for standing by the book The Chocolate War and allowing it to remain on it’s 7th grade reading list. The book was attacked by some parents for coming of age content they felt was too mature or wholly inappropriate for young readers.

The school countered citing the books strong central character who stands by his principles. A spokesperson for the ALA expressed her support for educators that their decisions on content for the whole not be swayed by individual parents.

Library officials in Chandler Arizona are reviewing the book “Where Willy Went”, a children’s sex education text, to determine whether the book should be removed from library shelves. This comes after four parents complained about the books contents. One mother’s concern came after her child found the text open on a reading table.

The parents request to have the book removed followed the denial of their request to relocate the book to the adult section of the library. Also currently under review for removal is an audio-book by comedian George Carlin and the periodical the Phoenix New Times.

To protest the removal of educational materials from the Chandler Library you can call library administration at (480) 782-2812.