Banned Books Week - question

[spinelli372003]

Heidi,  I think maybe we are at cross purposes here.  I am speaking 
of a public library.  not a school library.  In a public library it 
is open to all not just certain ages.  My sons have had to have much 
older material for class work.  They are in private schools and have 
not had things removed from their shelves.  however they have had to 
ask for them.  I guess I just don't see the problem with children 
asking for what they want/need.  
sherry

In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "heiditandy" <lists at h...> wrote:
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "spinelli372003" 
> <spin01 at a...> wrote:
> > I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.  I do 
> not 
> > agree with books being banned.  At all in any way shape or form.  
> I 
> > do however think that a parent is ultimately responsible for a 
> childs 
> > reading material.
> 
> 
> Sherry - what age group are you defining as a child? Are you 
> thinking of 8 year olds? 12 year olds? 16 year olds? They're all 
> children, as a matter of law and as a matter of policy in every 
> single school in the US (unless they've been emancipated, which is 
> very rare), but should a parent have the same ability to restrict 
> the reading material of a 16 year old as of an 8 year old? 
> 
> I'm speaking here, btw, as a mom of a 5 year old who's "read" via 
> audiotape the first three Harry Potter books, as well as 
Charlotte's 
> Web and every Magic Treehouse and Magic Schoolhouse book - he 
> prefers me to read to him, but if he wanted to read on his own, 
> there is not one book that I would hold off limits to him. But then 
> again, I know there is evidence to support the argument I have 
made, 
> that words have a different type of impact on a reader than images 
> do - there are certainly many, many types of images I would not let 
> him see!
> 
> And I'm also speaking as someone who's been a manic bibliophile 
> since I was four - by the time I was six, I'd read Little Women and 
> at eight, I'd read some Shakespeare - I read Mein Kampf in class 
> when I was ten, but I'd known about the Holocaust since I was 
> probably six, if not before. 
> 
> I think it is *very* important for a parent to know what his or her 
> child (read: under 11) is reading, and to accompany one's child to 
> the library and/or bookstore, and yes, I think it's appropriate for 
> parents to guide their younger children to age-appropriate books, 
> but by that, I mean things like theme rather than the complexity of 
> language. But I also think that abrogating that responsibility to 
> the school, to allow books to be removed from the shelves in a 
> library like the one in my son's school, which has to cater to kids 
> from four to coming on thirteen, is a cruel, harsh and censorious 
> way of controlling the community. 
> 
> The ALA agrees that children should not be required to read books 
> that the parent considers inapropriate; they say as much on their 
> website. Why should one parent, or a dozen parents, be able to say 
> that no child in a school should read *any* book? Who gives them 
the 
> right?
> 
> Heidi